The real Chinese question

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The Real
Chinese Question

By

Chester Holcombe

For many years Interpreter, Secretary of Legation, and
Acting Minister of the United States at Pekin.

Author of " The Real Chinaman," etc.

•f

YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT

NEW YORK

1907

Copyright, 1900,
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY.

3D .5
~i

PREFACE

THAT is a charitable rule of life which bids us
take every man at his best. It is, however, wiser
and safer to study each individual as thoroughly
as circumstances will permit, and then to strike
a balance between good and evil traits of char-
acter, accepting the result as a basis for judgment
and action, so far as he is concerned. The same
rule may be broadened with safety, and applied
to nations or races. If, in such use, it serves no
other purpose, it will, at least, act as a corrective
to ignorant prejudice, and to that most common
fault, pre judgment.

There is much force, and a wide range of
applicability, to that French saying : " Les absens
ont tou jours tort" the absent are always in the
wrong. Their story is seldom fairly told, the
motives and causes which led to any particular
conduct are seldom brought into a plain light,
and judgment goes against them by misrepresen-
tation or default. This rule of common practice
is, also, not less applicable to nations and races
than to individual members of the human family.

iv PREFACE

The Chinese, whether the term be used as
referring to persons of the race, or to the nation,
or to the government of the nation, have suffered
enormously from it. They have been " the
absent" in the past. And one has only to glance
at the columns of the daily press, or to read some
more serious articles in magazine literature, to
realize how closely the French quotation applies
to them. Any statement, any tale, however in-
coherent, absurd, grotesque, or self-contradictory,
is accepted, if it only be applied to the Chinese.
The Travels of Gulliver, fairy tales, and the
Wonderful Adventures of Mother Hubbard's
Dog all sink into the most insipid and unexciting,
matter-of-fact prose when brought into contrast
with current stories about the Chinese.

It is not merely in the tales and fictitious de-
scriptions, such as may serve to while away an
idle hour, that they have suffered, and that wrong
has been done to them. In matters of the gravest
importance, in those upon which turn the issues
of peace or war, upon which national existence
may hang, the Chinese have been " the absent,"
and have been judged and found guilty, either
upon no statement, or the enemies' statement, of
their case. For until recently, at least, the
Chinese have also been silent. They have been

PREFACE v

unable, or have not cared, to defend themselves
or maintain their cause before the great Western
world of thinking men and women. They have
failed to recognize the power which this body
holds to control and direct the actions of govern-
ments, and which it has been known, upon occa-
sion, to exercise. Hence, everything has gone
against them.

By way of example, it is not possible to believe
that if the fair-minded and generous-spirited
men and women of Great Britain had been accu-
rately and plainly informed of the facts; if they
had known what ruin was being wrought upon
the Chinese ; if they had been made at all familiar
with the arguments, protests, and appeals of the
Imperial Government, and with its bitter opposi-
tion; if they had understood the infamous purpose
for which British soldiers and British ships of
war were sent to China, and used there, and
blood was shed, and lives wasted — if they could
have been made to see all these things, it is not
possible to believe that their government would
have been allowed to persist in the opium traffic,
and to work such a cruel wrong upon China. But
China was " absent." And China was silent
when she should have appealed to a larger audi-
ence than the ministers, who cared little for

vi PREFACE

appeals and protests; she should have appealed
to a power higher than the Throne, to the power
behind it.

Chinese statesmen have been fond of saying
that " China is a slumbering dragon." Of late
China has been, not that, perhaps, but a dragon
not fully awake to his danger and the necessities
of his condition. Long outside the whirl of
modern life, but being gradually drawn within it,
he has neither adjusted himself to the situation
nor realized its demands. And he can only com-
plain in a language which the world does not
understand.

Too much has been written about China from
a purely foreign standpoint. The shelves are full
of books — notably English — telling with great
detail and much ingenuity what China wants,
what China desires, and what is best for China,
with the sole object of promoting the interests
ofJBritish commerce, and thwarting the possible
designs of Russia, and every other Power. But
regarding what China needs, for China's sake, the
world of literature is markedly silent. It hardly
need be said that volumes, written either in
defence or elaboration of some foreign policy, are
seldom or never just and fair to the Chinese.
They are not written in order to describe how
the natives of the empire feel, what they desire,

PREFACE vii

nor what they say. Nor are they written to give
broad and general views of any question from
the native standpoint, as well as from that of the
foreigner. Upon the contrary, everything is
focused down to a single point of view, and that
of foreign interest and profit.

The result is most unfortunate, as the present
situation must plainly show. A cyclone, a vol-
cano, an earthquake, or by any other fearful
name that it may be called, has suddenly burst
into terrible activity in the Chinese Empire, ac-
companied with horrors and agonies which no
man dare describe. Tens of thousands of un-
offending men and women and helpless children
have been slain. Millions upon millions of money
have been wasted in brutal riot, and as much
more in the effort to suppress it, and none can
yet see the end. The_contmued^ existence _of
China as a nation hangs quivering in the balance.

And yet, in these days of quick communication
and, what may be termed, universal information ;
when everybody is supposed to know everything ;
when every nook and cranny of the world have
been invaded and explored ; when floods of books
and avalanches of newspapers cover the earth,
telling everything that is true and much that is
not ; when the contents of this globe have ceased
to be matters of speculation, and men have turned

viii PR K FACE

their eyes to Mars and other planets — in such
times as these, in the presence of such a hideous
catastrophe as the uprising of an immense race
of men in frenzied defiance of all Western na-
tions, the great masses of the most intelligent and
best-informed in those nations are gazing at each
other in astonishment, wondering what has been
the cause of it all.

Whereas, any fair knowledge of events and
influences at work in China during the past sixty
years, knowledge which involved even a moderate
acquaintance with the Chinese side of the history,
no less than the foreign, would cause wonder, not
at the outbreak, but that it had delayed so long.
Better than that, such just information would
have prevented the outbreak, by destroying the
cause.

It is the purpose of this volume to bring before
the thoughtful and fair-minded public some
portions of the history referred to, and to explain
certain forces and influences which operate in
China to give those who may read it an oppor-
tunity to realize how certain events and certain
lines of Western policy must have appeared to
and have affected the Chinese. In doing this, it
may help to furnish a wiser and safer basis for
judgment and decision of the real Chinese ques-
tion

PREFACE ix

The volume apologizes for and defends no one,
least of all the Chinese. It states facts, some of
which are painful and humiliating, but which
ought to be stated, and which are neither exag-
gerated nor overdrawn. It appeals not for China,
but for fair play.

CHESTER HOLCOMBE.

September 15, 1900.

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

PAGES

SOME SERIOUS MISTAKES 1-29

Insufficient grounds of prejudice, I. Friction
and conflict result from misconception of Chinese
character, 2. Importance of better understand-
ing, 3. Empire not in condition of anarchy, 3.
Chinese satisfied with form of government, 4.
Much freedom of action permitted, 4. Chinese
obedient and fond of order, 4. Orderly disposition
of Chinese in United States, 5. Prefer their own
systems, 6. Will not allow others to decide for
them, 6. Chinese and foreigners at cross pur-
poses, 7. Chinese resent being imposed upon or
treated as children, 8. Shanghai-Woosung Rail-
way, 8. Restrictions upon foreign commerce, 12.
Source of trouble and dispute, 12. Chinese side
of question, 13. Forces discrimination against
Chinese, 13. Interferes with Government rev-
enue, 15. Foreign revenue used to pay foreign
loans, 16. Lekin tax, 16. Opposition to foreign
improvements not due to bigotry and superstition,
16. Object to employment of foreigners, 17. Chi-
nese labor question, 17. Silk filatures at Shanghai,
20. Railway from Tientsin to Peking, 24. China-
man docile but stubborn, 26. Exceedingly sensi-
tive, 27. Similar in essential characteristics to
Anglo-Saxons, 28.

xii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER II.

PAGES

CHINESE CHARACTER 30-60

Chinese a conundrum, 30. A man and yet a
child, 30. Many modern theories and ideas tested
in China centuries ago, 31. Radical yet conserva-
tive, 32. Slow yet rapid, 32. Resents unsought
advice, 33. Practical and capable of close dis-
crimination, 35. Logical reasoner, 36. Anger at
hypothecation of lekin tax, 36. Difficult to analyze
Chinese down to original characteristics, 40. Are
his peculiar ways and practices signs of a first or
second childhood? 42. Chinese have fixed system
for everything, 43. Fond of argument, 45. Always
ready with natural, or forced, explanation, 47.
Highly cultivated aesthetic taste, 48. Care of cem-
eteries, 49. High standard of literary taste, 50.
Moderation — the root idea of Confucianism, 51.
Grave points of weakness, 51. Acts mainly as a
repressive force, 53. Unexpected and frenzied out-
breaks the result, 53. Examples, 54. Causes of
anti-foreign outbreaks, 55. Chinese cherish secret
grudges, 56. Explanation of Boxer movement, 56.
Chinese punctilious in courtesy, 57. Exacting in
personal rights, 58. Generous and public spirited,
58. Bridges and temples, 58. His good-nature is
the weaker side of the Chinaman, 58. Chinese not
a decadent race, 59.

CHAPTER III.
THE CHINESE LITERATI 61-89

Prominent in all Chinese affairs, 61. Member-
ship open to all, 61. Constitutes immense literary

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xiii

PAGES

THE CHINESE LITERATI — continued 61-89

aristocracy, 62. Are the brains of the nation and
leaders in public opinion, 63. Impractical course
of study, 64. Grotesque when compared with mod-
ern knowledge, 64. Cannot estimate number of
living members, 66. Sketch of examinations, 66.
Chinese eager for membership, 68. No certain
ground for sweeping charges of corruption in
examinations, 69. System of value in the past,
70. Four grades in Chinese social scale, 70.
Graduates debarred from menial employment, 71.
Many literati unable to secure official positions,
72. Unemployed, they form a large and danger-
ous body, 75. Two civil service rules, 75. " Ex-
pectant " officials, 76. " Searchers," 77. Literati
as teachers and physicians, 78. As story-tellers,
79. As fortune-tellers, 80. Difficult to be held
in check, 81. Origin of Confucianism as a cult, 82.
System of morals rather than religion, 83. Literati
the champions of the system, 84. Opposed to
change, 85. Source of much of the anti-foreign
sentiment, 87. Responsible for many anti-foreign
outbreaks, 88.

CHAPTER IV.

CHINESE SOCIETIES 90114

Chinese power of organization, 90. Peculiar
form of clannishness, 90. Develops pride and pro-
vincialism, 91. Sources of clanship of locality, 92.
Peking phases, 93. Combinations against Canton-
ese, 94. Clan divisions not of serious importance,
95. Chinese a chemical compound, 96. Commer-
cial and labor combinations, 96. Provincial clubs

xiv ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

PACES

CHINESE SOCIETIES — continued 901 14

or guilds, 98. Local mutual aid societies, 99.
Temperance societies, 100. Secret social frater-
nities, loo. Absurd fictions regarding secret politi-
cal combinations, 101. First appearance in China,
102. Little scope for politics in China, 103. No
desire for change of government, 104. Satisfied
with Manchu rule, 105. Little precaution taken
against revolt, 106. Preventive measures, 107.
" White Lily " sect, 108. Interdicted by Emperor
Shun Chih, 109. Change of name, no. Action
of Hong Kong authorities, no. Secret societies
little cause of anxiety to government, no. " Ke
Lao Huei," or " Society of Elder Brothers," in.
Not a military conspiracy, 112. " Tai Ping Re-
bellion," 112. Author a disappointed malcontent,
113. The Boxer movement, 114.

CHAPTER V.

THE CHINESE ARMY AND NAVY 115-147

Chinese Board of War, 115. Scope of duties,

115. Post-office system and " Bureau of Victories,"

116. Officers of Board of War, 116. Incapacity of
members, 117. Board of War a barnacle office,
118. No intelligent officers available, 119. China
has no army, 119. Description of Peking, 120.
Under military control, 122. Form of organiza-
tion, 122. Manchu soldiers, 123. Frauds in pay
and rations, 124. Raids upon the Treasury, 125.
Vices of soldiers, 126. Management of military
affairs has drifted away from Peking, 127. Flexi-
bility in government system, 127. Aside from

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xv

PAGES

THE CHINESE ARMY AND NAVY — continued 115-147

Manchu soldiers, entire military system is pro-
vincial, 128. Utter lack of uniformity, 129. Re-
sultant troubles, 129. Northern and southern
superintendents of coast defense, 130. Li Hung
Chang notable leader in military affairs, 132. In-
terference and opposition, 132. Agents for sale of
military and naval supplies, 133. Influence and
bribery, 134. Unfamiliarity with modern arms,
135. Lack of trained officers and disciplined sol-
diers, 136. Chinese educational mission to the
United States, 137. Plan sought for Chinese Mili-
tary School, 137. Unsatisfactory efforts to secure
foreign military and naval instructors, 138. Com-
petition among foreign Powers, 139. Two foreign
military officers at Tientsin, 140. German officers
at Nanking, 141. Any success due to Viceroy Li,

143. Chinese navy, 143. The " Osborne Flotilla,"

144. Chinese make good soldiers, 145. Possible
size of Chinese army, 146. Last days of brave old
Admiral Ting, 146.

CHAPTER VI.
THE MISSIONARY 148-177

Hostile comment upon his work, 148. Claim
that civilization and commerce should precede him,
149. Chinese possess high standard of morals, 150.
Foreign objector to presence of young women in
China as missionaries, 151. Mistaken notions of
Chinese about social relations of foreigners, 152.
Value of missionary homes as object lessons, 152.
Views of Chinese official, 153. Work among Chi-
nese women, 154. Missionaries not the cause of

xvi ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

PAGES

THE MISSIONARY — continued 148-177

anti-foreign feeling, 155. Literati indifferent to
missionaries, but hate them as foreigners, 156.
Why mob violence is more frequently directed
against missionaries, 157. Complaint not against
natives because they become Christians, but that
they become foreigners, 158. Missionaries not
smuggled into the interior, 159. French treaty of
1858, 159. Foreign Powers protect them only as
citizens, 161. Questionable wisdom of "Article of
Toleration," 162. No occasion to argue question
of interior residence, 163. Conceded as a favor by
China, 164. Reparation for injuries, in China and
elsewhere, 165. No complaint against Protestant
missionaries as a class, 166. Valuable courtesies
shown to missionaries by Chinese officials, 167.
Chinese policy in religious matters uniformly tol-
erant, 169. The Nestorian faith, 170. Roman
Catholic missions, 171. Chinese policy compared
with that of certain Western Powers, 173. Mis-
sionaries not pugnacious, 174. Valuable services
to commerce and civilization, 175. No wisdom in
abandonment of nationality, 176. Missionaries
rapidly gaining ground in China, 177.

CHAPTER VII.
DIPLOMACY IN CHINA 178-215

Beginnings of commerce with China, 178. Early
diplomatic missions, 178. Exchange of commod-
ities, 179. Chinese engineers, physicians, and as-
trologers in Persia, 179. Diplomatic intercourse,
180. Trade at Canton, 180. East India Company

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xvii

PAGES

DIPLOMACY IN CHINA — continued 178-215

and " Hong Merchants," 180. Right Honorable
Lord Napier, 181. Insulting and bombastic corre
spondence, 182. Ignorance of Chinese, 184.
American and French missions, 186. Struggle
over right of residence at Peking, 187. War of
1858-60, 187. Chinese objections to diplomatic rela-
tions, 188. Commerce not connected with diplo-
macy, 189. Chinese conceit, 190. Audience ques-
tion, 191. The Tsung li Yamen, 192. Appoint-
ments to membership in it, 193. Chinese diffi-
culties, 194. Invariable courtesy of Chinese, 197.
Diplomatic trickeries, 199. Macao and the Portu-
guese treaty, 200. Chinese lack of good faith, 201.
Interference with rights of sovereignty, 202.
Chung Hou and treaty of St. Petersburg, 203. Re-
fusal to sign Japanese treaty, 204. Action of
French Government in Tonquin, 205. Great Brit-
ain and Chefoo Convention, 205. Diplomat an edu-
cator, 206. Disregard of native prejudices, 206.
Difficulties of language and interpretation, 208.
French minister and Tsung li Yamen, 209. French
vessels-of-war at Foochow, 210. Unskilled in in-
ternational law, 212. Inevitable difficulties, 213.
Personal equation large factor in Chinese diplo-
macy, 214.

CHAPTER VIII.
CHINESE OPINION OF FOREIGNERS 216-249

Universal love of home, 216. Beneficent results,
217. Transfer of allegiance difficult and slow,
217. Determine Chinese opinion of foreigners by
foreign opinion of Chinese, 218. Comparison of

xviii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

PAGES

CHINESE OPINION OF FOREIGNERS — con-
tinued 216-249

ideas, 219. Narrow grounds of Chinese opinion,
221. Ignorance concerning Western races, 221.
Roman description of ancient Chinese, 222. Char-
acter of Europeans who visited China, 222. Dutch
at Canton in 1506, 223. Chinese judge the many by
the few, 223. Cowardly and obsequious demeanor
of some, 225. Dutch at Peking in 1795, 225. Su-
pernatural gifts attributed to foreigners, 226.
Boxer movement, 228. Possible origin of idea,
228. Buddhist and Christian rivalry, 229. Chinese
policy of seclusion, 230. Chinese originally invited
foreign intercourse, 231. Unwelcome knowledge of
past sixty years, 232. Chinese judge from their
own standpoint, 233. Western atmosphere re-
pugnant to Chinese, 234. Unaccustomed to world
of to-day, 235. Partition of China, 236. Selfish
advice and purposes, 237. Japanese position, 237.
Characteristic incident, 238. Resent foreign air
and conduct, 239. Unreasonable demands and criti-
cisms, 242. Spheres of influence, 242. Failures of
justice, 243. Injudicious conduct of Roman Catho-
lic missionaries, 248. Anti-foreign feeling chronic
and universal, 249.

CHAPTER IX.
OPIUM 250-288

Modern China begins with 1842, 250. Opium war
and treaty of Nanking, 250. Inception of foreign
relations unfortunate, 251. Prejudice caused by
opium traffic, 251. Chinese names of drug, 252.
First knowledge of poppy, 252. Penalties for use

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xix

PAGES

OPIUM — continued 250-288

of opium, 252. Not used prior to 1775, 253. Early
efforts to smuggle opium, 253. British East India
Company monopoly, 253. Importation prohibited,
254. Growth of contraband traffic, 254. Spread
of trade in opium, 255. British Government silent,
256. Increased efforts to suppress smuggling, 257.
British Government favors the illicit trade, 257.
Condition of opium trade in 1838, 258. Appoint-
ment and orders of Commissioner Lin, 259. His
energetic action, 259. His correspondence with
Captain Elliott, 260. Surrender and destruction
of opium at Canton, 261. Failure of efforts of
Commissioner, 262. Attitude of British authorities,
262. Blockade of and war at Canton, 263. Sir
Henry Pottinger and Chinese Commissioners, 264.
English merchants protest to Sir Robert Peel, 266.
Growth of illegal traffic, 267. Hypocritical action
of Great Britain, 268. War of 1860, 269. Sir John
Bowring and case of the " Arrow," 269. Profits
of British Crown from opium, 270. Amount of
opium traffic, 271. False assertions that China was
indifferent, 272. Absurd pretence of harmless
character of the vice, 273. Deadly effects of opium
smoking, 274. China cowed and humiliated, 276.
Pleads for suppression of traffic, 277. Result of
formal appeal to British Queen, 278. Protest of
January, 1875, 280. Action of Great Britain on
Chef oo Convention, 281. United States treaty of
1880, 281. Correspondence between China and
Great Britain, which Christian and which heathen,
282. Spread of poppy cultivation in China, 283.
Opium traffic enemy to honest commerce, 284. All
foreigners suffer, 287. Modern Great Chinese
Wall, 288.

xx ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER X.

PAGES

FOREIGN AGGRESSION 289-3 1 5

Chinese fear absorption of empire, 289. Proud of
their country, 290. Memorial from Governor of
Canton to Emperor, 290. Suspicion of foreigners,

291. Conduct of early Europeans in China, 291.
Dutch at Macao, Pescadore Islands, Amoy, and
Formosa, 292. Portuguese at Ningpo and Macao,

292. Source of annoyance and trouble, 293. Coolie
trade and " fan tan " at Macao, 293. Great Britain
at Hong Kong, 293. Depot and headquarters of
opium smugglers, 294. Real character of Hong
Kong trade, 295. Lord Charles Beresford on
opium smuggling from Hong Kong, 296. Chinese
sentiment toward Russia, 297. Russian diplomat-
ists, 298. China and Japan, 299. Results of war
with Japan, 300. France in China, 300. Connec-
tion between Catholic missionary troubles and
designs of France, 301. French course unjustifi-
able, 301. No trade, no marine, no interests in
China, 302. French not natural colonists, 302.
No points of natural contact with Chinese, 303.
Germany's opportunity, 303. How sacrificed, 304.
Maintenance of balance of power is graduated
spoliation, 305. Foreign concessions, 306. British
concession at Shanghai, 307. French Legation at
Peking, 308. French concession at Shanghai, 308.
Another form of spoliation, 311. Lord Charles
Beresford upon the practice, 312. Influence of
such acts upon Chinese, 313. Destructive of trade,
314.

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS xxi

CHAPTER XI.

PAGES

THE PARTITION OF CHINA

Chinese dynasties, 316. Genghis and Kublai
Khan, 316. Grand Canal, 317. Secret of success
of Manchu dynasty, 318. Narcotism of Chinese
rulers, 318. Origin of Chinese race, 319. Not a
mixed race, 320. No intermingling of blood, 320.
Eurasians, 321. Chinese uniform and identical in
racial traits, 322. Clans and quarrels, 323. Differ-
ences of dialect, 324. No geographical lines of
demarcation, 326. China shut away from other
nations, 326. Chinese Empire one great hive of
commerce, 327. Official travel and intercourse,

328. Chinese such a type as might be expected,

329. Modern Rip Van Winkle, 331. Dismember-
ment of China, 331. No sound arguments favoring
the scheme, 331. Real motive is plunder, 332.
Reason for British attitude, 332. Good ground for
complaints against Chinese administration, 333.
Easy and efficient measures of remedy at hand,
334. Concerted action of great Powers, 334.
Rivalries in China, 335. Lord Charles Beresford
upon foreign policy in China, 336. Archibald R.
Colquhoun, 338. Harold E. Gorst, 338. Great
Britain, Russia, foreign loan, and Wei Hai Wei,
338. European Powers at fault for troubles in
China, 340. Policy of the United States, 342. Re-
sults of quiet and friendly methods, 343. Argu-
ments against partition, 344. No solvent found for
the Chinaman, 345. Lack of success of Western
Powers in governing Oriental races, 346. Great
Britain in India, 346. Chinese able to govern
themselves, 348. Peace of Europe depends upon
the integrity of Chinese Empire, 349.

xxii ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER XII.

PAGES

REFORM IN CHINA 352-386

Not the concern of outsiders, 352. Natural but
dangerous to meddle, 352. Sweeping reforms
necessary, 354. Examples of corruption, 355-360.
Parental system of government in part responsible,

361. Chinese system of balances and adjustments,

362. Proceedings of a tax collector, 364. No
system of individual responsibility, 365. No parti-
tion of official duties, 365. China over-officered,
366. Exaggerated notions of the wealth of Chinese
officials, 367. China not the land of the enor-
mously rich, 368. Wide division of results of
official peculation, 368. Inadequate official salaries,
369. " Anti-extortion fund," 370. Understanding
between officials and people, 370. Unwisdom of
system, 371. Is nation capable of reforming
itself? 372. No doubt that it is, 372. Great major-
ity of Chinese honest, acute men of business, 373.
Large and growing body of intelligent men in the
empire, 374. " Chinese Educational Mission,"
375. Power of public opinion, 375. Danger of
trouble, 376. Chinese will reform China for their
own benefit, 376. Interference should be cautious
and kindly, 378. Consistent slowness necessary,
379. Cause of failure of the Emperor in 1898,
379. Three necessary preliminary measures, 381.
Systems of weights, measures, and coinage, 381.
Readjustment of salaries and pay of all official ser-
vants, 382. Exclusion of all victims of the opium
habit from any form of public duty, 383. The real
Chinese question, 385. Policy which should be
adopted, 386.

The Real Chinese Question

CHAPTER I.

SOME SERIOUS MISTAKES.

IT is a trite remark that ignorance is a prolific
source of trouble. Views and opinions of men
or races, which are based upon little knowledge
and much imagination, may be harmless in works
of fiction, but become dangerous when made the
basis of intercourse and practical relations. Mu-
tual misjudgment, injustice, and enmity are the
inevitable results.

It is easier to call the Chinaman a heathen than
to understand him. That he has eyes queerly
shaped and located, eats with chopsticks, dresses
his hair into a queue, and wears his shirt outside
of his trousers, are held, by the large majority of
people, to furnish ample grounds for the applica-
tion of this offensive term. Yet he neither
shaped nor placed his eyes, our own ancestors

2 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

braided their hair and wore it, as he does. And
the relative arrangement of the garments named
is not a matter of either morals, intellect, or re-
ligion. Thus this petty abuse of him is largely
the result of ignorance.

In graver affairs, misconceptions of the
Chinese, mistaken views of their attitude, and
consequent erroneous judgments and conduct to-
ward them, are responsible for a large part of the
friction and conflict between them and Western
nations. They are not credited with the posses-
sion of the same spirit, motive, and feeling which
animate and control the rest of the world. They
are, only too frequently, neither granted the same
rights, nor accorded the same privileges. The
same measure of forbearance and consideration
is not allowed them as is conceded to others.
Governments, acting upon lines of purely selfish
purposes, object to, and at times have overcome
by force, the selfish or patriotic opposition of the
Chinese. Some men and some governments are
reckless and indifferent to ultimate results, so
long as their immediate purpose is effected. But
the masses of the people are disposed to be fair-
minded, and have no desire to injure China for
the sake of their own advantage. More than
this, they are sufficiently wise to accept, as an in-
variable truth, the statement that no wrong done

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 3

to one individual or nation can be to the perma-
nent advantage of any other.

It is important to-day, as never before, that
misapprehensions should be removed, false im-
pressions corrected, the truth told, and the Chi-
nese Government and people be better under-
stood. Ignorance is too expensive and unwise to
be longer indulged in. There are many common
points of contact and interest which a right mu-
tual understanding will bring to light. Fairer
judgments, and increased respect, will do more to
promote all proper forms of intercourse and com-
merce than men-of-war and dynamite. And the
Western world can best aid China to understand
it, by means of an honest effort to understand
China.

It is a mistake to suppose that the empire is in
a condition of chronic misrule and anarchy.
While there are infrequent local disturbances and
uprisings, caused by the action of incompetent
or tyrannical local officials, superstition, or igno-
rance, the empire, as a whole, is quiet and peace-
able. It is crowded with a great multitude of
cities, towns, and villages, to which are allowed
large measures of self-control, and which are or-
derly and well regulated. The Chinaman is not
groaning under recognized burdens, nor strug-
gling against an unwelcome tyranny. Whatever

4 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

may be the defects of his governmental system, he
is himself responsible for them. He is quite well
aware of this fact, and never objects to the sys-
tem, though he may, at times, rise in protest
against what he considers as abuses, or laxity in
the administration of it. In the long centuries
during which it has been in existence, he has
either shaped himself to it, or it is the natural
outgrowth of his character. Whichever it may
be, the genius of his government meets with his
entire approval.

In point of fact, the Chinese are governed less
than almost any nation in the world. So long as
they pay their taxes, and violate none of the re-
quirements of the moral code, they are not dis-
turbed by the authorities. A thousand and one
official inspections, interferences, and exactions,
common everywhere in America and Europe, are
quite unknown in China. Some of them might,
perhaps, be wisely introduced, but the Chinaman
has never been guided, vexed, or harassed by
them. He is, by nature and education, obedient
to law and fond of good order. The teachfngs
of Confucius, and the sacred edicts of the wise
Emperor, Kang Hsi, both taught everywhere and
to every subject, have had an immense and valu-
able influence in this direction. In evidence of
the law-abiding disposition of the Chinese, let the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 5

fact be noted that, in the face of an intense and
universal anti-foreign feeling, foreigners have
for many years travelled alone and unprotected
into every part of the empire, and have, almost
invariably, met with politeness, civility, and kind
treatment. If a correspondingly bitter hatred of
Chinese existed in the United States, how long,
and to what extent, would it be prudent or safe
for any of them to roam through our large cities
and rural communities? Another fact, not suf-
ficiently well recognized, furnishes evidence in
the same direction. The Chinese immigrants to
this country belong almost exclusively to the low-
est class of their people, and are familiarly de-
scribed, in their own land, as being, each, " half
fisherman and half pirate." Yet a careful ex-
amination of the criminal and police records of
any city in the United States will show a smaller
percentage of disorderly Chinese — smaller in pro-
portion to the total number of residents of that
race — than of any other foreign nationality
which is to be found among us.

The Chinese are not lethargic, incapable, nor
indifferent. But they insist, unreasonably per-
haps, upon looking at all things through their
own eyes, studying them in their own way, and
deciding for themselves, whether they are of
value or worthless to them. Their systems,

6 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

social, political, and economical, were settled,
fully adjusted, and crystallized centuries ago.
Ours are subject to almost daily alteration and
development. Possibly it should not be expected
that they adopt ours, without inquiry or hesita-
tion, when they see us so ready to discard them
for any others which are new or untried. Then
their modes of life are more simple and quiet
than ours. They abhor the ceaseless and ex-
hausting whirl which " men of the West " call
life. In other words, they criticise it very much
as would the grandparents of the present genera-
tion, if suddenly thrown into the midst of it.

At the same time, the Chinese readily recognize
the superiority of Western ideas and ways in
some directions. They keenly resent any at-
tempts to instruct or direct them. But they are
quite ready to ask advice when they desire it, only
reserving the right to digest and use, modify, or
reject it, from their own point of view and by
their own judgment. They will not allow for-
eigners to regulate or adjust matters for them.
They are determined to do, whatever is to be
done, for themselves and to their own advantage.

And just here the Chinese and the majority of
foreigners who have any interets in the empire
are working at cross purposes. Constant fric-
tion and much angry feeling are the results. The

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 7

Chinese believe that the foreigners are seeking to
explore, exploit, and reconstruct the empire,
solely for foreign profit and advantage. They
will never assent willingly to any such line of
action, and will continue to obstruct it by every
possible means in the future, as in the past. Peo-
ple of the United States, or any other land, have
only to ask themselves how they would feel un-
der such efforts of any body of foreigners, efforts
persistently and openly pushed, to understand
Chinese sentiment upon the point. Such is, be-
yond question, the animating motive of the great
proportion of all foreign attempts made for the
development of China. The fact is well and
commonly recognized. It is hardly reasonable
to expect any great amount of sympathy with
such a motive from the race which is to be ex-
ploited and explored, nor any unusual adapta-
bility to such a scheme. And when a limited
amount of exploitation and development have
been accomplished, and the Chinese have been
able to divert the results from foreign pockets
and treasuries into their own, there arises the
childish and absurd complaint that " the opening
up of China is mainly for the benefit of the Chi-
nese." Why should it not be? Yet sensible and
intelligent men utter the cry, and write columns
and pages in newspapers, magazines, and books,

8 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

in censure of their own and the Chinese govern-
ments, because such undesired and unexpected
results have followed their schemes.

The Chinese are not children, and it is a
mistake to look upon or treat them as such.
Few courses of action will more quickly provoke
intense hostility, than attempts to gain a purpose
by means of a trick or subterfuge, or by taking
advantage of their ignorance in any way. A bit
of history will illustrate this trait of character.
Something more than twenty-five years ago, a
number of foreign men of business in Shanghai,
anxious for the construction of railways in China,
and believing that the objections of the officials
and people would disappear, if they had any op-
portunity to see and test the value of such a mode
of transportation, decided to construct a model
line from Shanghai to Woosung — a distance of
twelve miles. Their purpose was as laudable as
their methods were unwise. Having organized
a company and secured the necessary capital, they
applied to the Chinese authorities for a permit to
build a horse railroad over the proposed route.
After considerable hesitation and much corre-
spondence, the permit was issued, it having been
made particularly plain upon both sides that only
animal power could be used. The employment
of steam was specifically forbidden. Yet it was

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 9

the purpose of the promoters of the scheme to
construct a narrow-gauge steam road, and this
they proceeded to do, in spite of their repeated
pledges to the contrary. They knew well that
there was neither one Chinese official nor subject
in the empire who would be able to detect the
trick which was being played, by any peculiari-
ties of construction. Only when the steam loco-
motive was seen, could they tell the difference
between it and a horse, and discover the imposi-
tion of which they were the victims. The for-
eigners interested believed that their powers of
persuasion, and the force of an accomplished fact
upon the official mind, would then protect the
railway from destruction. They evidently knew
but little of the temper of the Chinese.

The survey of the contemplated route provoked
a mob which was promptly suppressed, and the
most cordial assistance was rendered by the au-
thorities at every step in the progress of the con-
struction. But when the line was ready and the
locomotive, which had been quietly smuggled
into Shanghai in parts, and put together in secret
— when the locomotive made its appearance, the
storm broke. Indignant and angry protest after
protest was made by the local Chinese officials,
and by the Imperial Government at Peking. The
feeling was all the more intense because the ap- -

io REAL CHINESE QUESTION

plication for permission to construct the line, and
the resulting correspondence, had been made and
carried on through official channels. Thus at
least two consuls-general were parties to the de-
ceit, and, in Chinese eyes, their governments
through them.

The Chinese authorities were much too cau-
tious and timid to do what would have been done
elsewhere, to tear up and remove the line.
Everything short of that summary and well-
deserved act was done. The populace were, if
possible, more excited than the officials. Mobs
were organized, and when these were with diffi-
culty suppressed, bridges and portions of the
roadbed were secretly destroyed. When these
were efficiently guarded at all points, then mis-
guided but patriotic Chinamen threw themselves
under the wheels of the trains when in motion,
hoping, by such suicide, to arouse the nation to a
higher pitch of resentment against Western
trickery and outrage.

In the meantime all foreigners, except British
subjects, foreseeing the storm, had quietly sold
their interests and withdrawn from the ill-de-
vised venture. Thus the diplomatic management
of the business was left to the government of
Great Britain. After months of angry discus-
sions at the capital, the British Minister was at

REAL CHINESE QUESTION n

length forced to order the operation of the line to
cease, as it was becoming a more and more serious
menace to all foreign interests at Shanghai.
After further wrangling, the Chinese Govern-
ment, hopeless of settling the question in any
other way, offered a liberal sum in purchase of
the road, which was accepted by the British au-
thorities. The latter stipulated, however, as a
condition of sale, that the line be reopened, and
operated for a term of one year. This require-
ment was carried out in good faith by the Chi-
nese. But on the day when the term expired, the
work of destruction began. Every portion of
roadbed, equipment, and rolling stock was re-
moved, placed on board ship, and carried to the
island of Formosa, where it was thrown upon the
seabeach and left to destruction.

The Chinese authorities in this manner, with
much moderation and at no small expense,
marked their intense indignation at being played
upon like children, and being chosen as victims
of subterfuge and trickery. And this wretchedly
advised course of action, taken by foreigners who
had spent their lives in China and yet had learned
nothing of the Chinese, delayed the introduction
of railways to the empire for a considerable num-
ber of years.

By the same treaties which authorized foreign

12 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

commerce with China, certain restrictions were
placed upon it. A number of sea and river
ports were specified within the limits of which
alone foreign merchants might reside and trans-
act their business. These have come to be called
the " open " or " treaty " ports of China. The
number of these points has increased from time
to time, but the restrictions and regulations
which confine foreigners to them have never
been substantially modified. On the other hand,
in these same treaties, the Chinese Government
was coerced into the concession of certain cur-
tailments of its natural rights as an indepen-
dent power. It assented to a maximum rate
of five per cent, duty ad valorem upon ex-
ports and imports. As the government main-
tains a complicated and uncertain system of in-
land taxation upon merchandise, it was also
forced to agree that an additional rate of two and
one-half per cent., paid at one time and called
" transit duty," should cover all inland taxes
upon foreign goods sent into the interior, or na-
tive products bought in the interior, and intended
for export to any foreign country.

As was to have been expected, these agree-
ments have been the fertile source of constant
trouble and dispute between the Chinese authori-
ties and merchants upon the one hand, and all

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 13

foreign governments, with such of their people
as are interested in Chinese commerce, upon the
other. A diplomatic quarrel regarding the scope
and proper interpretation of certain words and
phrases which are found in the treaties has
raged continuously for forty years. The Chinese
seek to narrow the meaning of the disputed terms
within their reasonable intent. The foreign of-
ficials seek, only at times possibly, to broaden
them beyond any legitimate construction. Keep-
ing pace with this particular war of words runs a
general skirmish. There is a constant demand,
made by foreign governments, for the removal of
restrictions, some of which are manifestly unlaw-
ful, for increased facilities for trade, and for the
correction of abuses and punishment for viola-
tions of the treaties. These last are the work of
local authorities and petty tax collectors. They
are of constant occurrence, and are intentional
and outrageous. No commerce, however pros-
perous, could exist permanently under them.

Yet it is only fair to look at the Chinese side
of the whole question. It must be admitted that
the restrictions named above were necessary to
the continued existence of foreign commerce.
Without them it would soon have been strangled
by excessive and frequently repeated taxation.
Yet, at the same time, it must also be admitted

i4 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

that these limitations upon native authority were
well calculated to prevent any healthy growth of
trade. This is evident from three separate points
of view. In the first place, no government will
give any other than the narrowest possible inter-
pretation to treaty promises which have been
exacted from it by force, and which are a distinct
interference with its inalienable right of sov-
ereignty. And no government, unless it be that
of the angels, will view with any degree of favor,
or encourage, save upon a demand backed by
force, any enterprise which is protected by for-
eign powers, at the cost of its own humiliation
and disgrace. Oriental governments have mem-
ories and are at times vindictive, like those of the
Western world.

In the second place, these treaty restrictions
upon the free action of the Chinese authorities
force them to discriminate against their own peo-
ple and products. Native goods, owned by a for-
eigner and destined for export, can only be taxed
at inland points to the extent of two and one-half
per cent, ad valorem. The same goods, if native
owned, or bound for the same port and not des-
tined beyond sea, in passing over the same route,
may be taxed to any limit that the needs of the
government, or the rapacity of the local collector,
may see fit to enforce. Again, foreign goods, if

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 15

foreign owned, passing inland to a final sale and
destination, cannot be taxed to exceed two and
one-half per cent, ad valorem, in course of transit.
The same goods, if native owned, or native goods
in competition with them, going the same journey
to the same market, are liable to any duty or ex-
action en route which may be inflicted. These
discriminations are all against native merchants
and native merchandise, and are directly calcu-
lated to drive both out of the market. Again,
what government, except it be that of the angels,
could be expected to regard with favor, or to fos-
ter with open hand, a commerce thus protected
solely in the interest of aliens?

In the third place, the conditions under which
foreign commerce was established and is carried
on are a serious interference with the revenues of
the government. So far as the entire body of
foreign export and import trade is concerned,
there is no flexibility or power of adjustment left
by which the government may regulate the in-
come from that source in accordance with its
needs. No matter what exigencies and conse-
quent demands upon the treasury must be met,
no help can be looked for in that direction. It
fluctuates in amount only as the commerce upon
which it is levied shows gain or loss. And the
total sum derived from it is unquestionably much

16 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

less than it would be if there had been no forced
commutation of the inland taxes, as described
above.

The revenue from foreign commerce has been
for some years practically exhausted in the pay-
ment of the principal and interest of foreign
loans, made necessary by the heavy and repeated
indemnities demanded of China, by expenditures
for the military and naval defence, for a diplo-
matic and consular service, and other modern in-
novations. The war with Japan and the heavy
payment exacted by the terms of peace made it
necessary to raise sums of money far beyond the
capacity of the foreign revenue. The lekin tax,
which is mainly apportioned to the payment of
provincial expenses, was therefore pledged as
security for a further foreign loan. The result
of this action upon the people and its influence in
bringing the Boxer movement to a head are men-
tioned elsewhere.

It is a grave mistake and an injustice to the
Chinese to attribute their opposition to foreign
improvements to bigotry and superstition.
These influences have some slight weight with
the lower and more ignorant classes. An unrea-
soning hatred, contempt, and fear of everything
foreign has much more weight even with them.
But in the educated and official circles, the sources

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 17

of opposition are far more respectable, and de-
serving of serious consideration. In nearly every
line of modern development, China is wholly de-
ficient in skilled workmen. The entire control,
direction, and labor must be placed in the hands
of foreigners, over whom the authority of the Im-
perial Government could extend only to the point
of discharge from service. In other words, the
Chinese must put themselves, practically without
reserve, into the hands of strangers, accept advice,
and expend large sums of money upon plans and
works which they are too ignorant and inexperi-
enced to criticise, take whatever may be the re-
sult, and call it good. Various unsatisfactory
and disagreeable experiences in this way of doing
things have rendered the authorities extremely
reluctant, not to say opposed, to adopt it. Yet
this is not the main ground of objection.

Perhaps no country was ever called upon to
settle questions of labor and food supply under
the same close and pressing necessities as those
which have existed in China for centuries. The
situation there has made such questions literally
vital. The problem constantly pressed home to
them for consideration and adjustment has been :
How may a given amount of work be so divided
and subdivided as to produce the barest needs of
life to the greatest number of human beings?

1 8 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

They have studied it, government and people,
never with success. They have never reached
the point where, to millions of human beings, a
day's idleness failed to mean a day's abstinence
from food. And the indescribable and unmen-
tionable horrors of famine, caused commonly by
drought over large areas, and utterly inadequate
means of transportation, repeated with sickening
frequency, have indeed kept the poor and the
starving always with them. It has made them
the most marvellously economical people in the
world. Writers may say almost what they please,
with truth, regarding the dirt and filth to be found
in Peking. And it will still remain true that there
is no city in the United States in which all forms
of garbage are so carefully and regularly gath-
ered, removed, and put to suitable uses. It may
readily be granted that this is not done as a sani-
tary measure. But the result is no less healthful
if the work is done upon economical grounds.

It is the labor question which forms the basis
of the most serious objections of intelligent Chi-
nese, to the introduction of machine work and
rapid transportation. It is not in the question
whether the fears and arguments which influence
them are valid or worthless. It is enough that
they are operative and sufficient with them. It
is simply impossible to convince them that a ma-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 19

chine by which one man is enabled to do the pro-
ductive labor of ten can be anything but a curse
to a country in which, after the most patient
division and subdivision, arrangement and rear-
rangement, there still is not to be found an
amount of labor sufficient to clothe each subject
in the meanest rags and to feed him with the
cheapest food. What they need is not condensa-
tion of work, but expansion. They say, and
justly, that men are cheaper in China than
horses, mules, or donkeys. The writer has many
a time hired an able-bodied Chinese to walk the
towpath of the Grand Canal for a distance of one
hundred and twenty miles, the man to return at
his own charges, for the sum of about twenty-five
cents in gold. And the more intelligent Chinese
insist that what is needed in their empire is, not
increase in the working capacity of the man,
which a machine practically secures, but a suffi-
ciency of work for the normal capacity of his un-
aided hands. Under their theory and belief, if by
a machine one man is enabled to accomplish the
labor of ten, then the other nine must suffer star-
vation.

Arguments addressed to them, based upon in-
creased production and sales in wider markets,
reach only deaf ears. The practical question of
labor, and consequent food, for many millions of

20 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

hungry men, women, and children, is far too
eager and pressing to permit them to experiment
in the line of any novel theories or schemes of, to
them, uncertain issue. Foreign imports have, in
many directions, lessened the sale of domestic
products, and hence, to a corresponding extent,
decreased the total of remunerative labor. Why
then should they favor the increase of the foreign
import trade? And since machine-made goods
from abroad have already driven some of their
people into idleness, pauperism and starvation,
why should they, by the introduction of the ma-
chines themselves, still more rapidly and widely
destroy their natural source of livelihood?
Cheaper goods are of no possible advantage to a
man who, being without labor, is unable to buy
them. And they ask why it is that the United
States, having, for wise reasons, shut out a flood
of poor laborers who wandered there from China
seeking for food, advises the introduction of ma-
chinery to China, thereby producing, according
to their ideas, an increase in the pauperism there.

Two incidents will bring out Chinese views
upon the whole subject in a strong and practical
light.

In 1883, an American and an English firm, at
the cost of about a million dollars in each case,
had established extensive filatures, or machines

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 21

for reeling the threads from the silk cocoons, at
Shanghai. The local Chinese authorities de-
manded that they be closed and removed upon the
nominal pretension that the treaties conceded to
foreigners no privilege to establish manufactur-
ing industries of any sort within the empire.
Their rights were strictly limited to the various
lines of commercial operations. After the usual
period of local discussion, the business was trans-
ferred to Peking for diplomatic arrangement.
As their interests were identical, the United
States and British ministers made common cause,
and, together, argued the various points involved
with the Chinese Cabinet.

Prince Kung, as the leader upon the native
side, though not yielding the claim that foreign-
ers were entitled, by the terms of the treaties, to
engage in manufactures, wasted no time upon it,
but went directly to the heart of the broader ques-
tion. He insisted that, under existing condi-
tions, it was impossible for his government to
consent to the introduction of labor-saving ma-
chinery. They needed machines to make work,
not to save it. And he said that any attempt
upon the part of the authorities to introduce
labor-saving devices, or their introduction by
others, with the assent of the government, would
be met with violent and riotous opposition from

22 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

the people, which might spread to a point where
it would be quite beyond control. The millions
of Chinese workingmen would not quietly submit
to any further, and artificial, reduction of their
means of support, which were already inadequate.

Referring to the case in point, Prince Kung
said that in the silk district near Shanghai there
were hundreds of thousands of old women and
young children, too old and too young to perform
harder labor, who earned from one to two cents
(silver) each day, by reeling the threads from
silk cocoons. They must work or starve, and
this was the only employment for which they
were competent. In the various silk districts
throughout the empire, there were millions of the
same class of Chinese engaged in the same indus-
try, and also incapable of doing anything else.
The introduction of machines for doing this
work would force this immense and helpless class
into immediate starvation. Serious petitions and
complaints had been received from Shanghai, call-
ing attention to the distress already caused by the
filatures established there, and praying for relief.
The government of China could not consent to
any line of action which was directly calculated
to deprive its people of their work and, hence, of
their food.

The British Minister, at one point in the con-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 23

versation, called the attention of the prince to the
superior quality of the silk thread made by ma-
chines over that produced by hand labor, and
gave this fact as the cause of the increase of the
silk trade in Japan, where filatures were used, and
the corresponding decrease in the industry in
China. The minister evidently sought to play
upon the well-known jealousy existing between
the two nations. But the prince replied, some-
what stiffly but with all due courtesy, that that
related to a class of questions with which his gov-
ernment never interfered. Those matters be-
longed entirely to the manufacturers and mer-
chants, who were quite competent to deal with
them. Doubtless, if they discovered that better
silk, for example, was needed to meet the de-
mands of consumers, they would provide a better
quality. That was their own business, with
which the government had nothing whatever
to do.

It may be added just here, that the interest of
the British Minister in these cases came to an
early and abrupt termination. He received a
peremptory instruction from London, directing
him to drop the business and to make no further
effort to protect the rights or the investment of
the English merchants in the case. The reason
given was characteristic, selfish, and wise, from

24 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

the standpoint of British interests. Her Britan-
nic Majesty's Government did not desire to en-
courage the introduction of manufacturing in-
dustries into China, which, at some future day,
might lessen the Chinese demand for British
manufactured products.

The Peiho River, from Tientsin to a point near
Peking, a distance of one hundred and twenty
miles, forms a part of the famous Grand Canal
of China. For centuries it has supported an
enormous traffic, and furnished employment to
a correspondingly large number of Chinese.
When the government determined to construct a
line of railway between the two cities named, a
feeling of uneasiness was developed, not only
among the boat population, but throughout the
innumerable villages which line the river banks,
and in which the main business is to supply the
wants of the boatmen. The feeling grew as the
construction of the road progressed, until it
amounted to open and widespread riot. Sec-
tions of the line were torn up and some bridges
were destroyed. Rebuilt, they were again de-
molished. This was no bigoted and supersti-
tious uprising, nor was it, in any sense, an anti-
foreign demonstration. The people simply
feared a diversion of traffic from the river to the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 25

railroad, hence a loss of employment, and conse-
quent want and suffering to them.

A conference took place between the authori-
ties and representatives of the boatmen and vil-
lagers. Perfect frankness and independence of
speech were safely indulged in by the latter, quite
as much as would be allowed in any democratic
government. The authorities explained their
purposes, assured the representatives of the peo-
ple that no considerable quantity of business
would be withdrawn from the river, and, in par-
ticular, gave pledges that certain of the most im-
portant classes of merchandise should continue
indefinitely to be transported by the river route.
This amicable adjustment having been reached,
the rioters apologized for having created the dis-
turbance and having " troubled the heart of the
Emperor." They pleaded their anxieties in ex-
cuse. Their excuse and apologies were accepted,
and they never troubled the road thereafter.

The incident is interesting from several points
of view. It gives a striking illustration of the
relations existing between the government and
people, and shows them to be paternal rather than
despotic. The trouble arose within easy reach of
Peking, and the official who had control of the
settlement was named, and sent from the capital

26 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

for that purpose, by the Emperor in person. The
independence of thought, speech, and bearing
upon the one part, the recognition of the rights of
the people, and the justice of their grievance, and
the spirit of conciliation and forbearance upon
the other, are not exceptional. The class of peo-
ple among whom the disturbance originated is the
lowest and the most ignorant to be found in
China. Yet they were able to recognize a danger
and to formulate a complaint upon intelligent
grounds, and to present it in such manner as to
secure respectful hearing and satisfactory pledges
of protection. Such conferences between gov-
ernment and people and such conciliatory adjust-
ments are not rare in China.

The Chinaman is, by nature, quiet, docile, well
behaved, and very much given to the good habit
of minding his own business. It is, however,
nothing short of dangerous to infer, from the
possession of these qualities, that he may be easily
forced or driven. No race upon the earth can be
more stubborn when angered, or aroused to what
is believed to be a defence of its rights. Then
he is capable of an unlimited, though sometimes
passive, resistance. And, at other times, he is
capable of any amount of determined effort and
of self-sacrifice. No edict or decree of any em-
peror in Chinese history has been generally en-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 27

forced by direct means if it failed to meet with
approval or, at least, careless indifference. It
might not be actively opposed, but would be
evaded, ignored, and then allowed to die of neg-
lect. It is probably true that there are a multi-
tude of laws upon the books of government which
must be obnoxious to the people, yet which are
apparently of full force and are obeyed. But the
Chinaman is expert in a system of balances and
adjustments, and any careful study into the way
and manner in which such a law is obeyed will
speedily show that the obedience is nominal, and
that in fact the statute is a dead letter.

It is a mistake to suppose that the Chinaman
lacks keenness of perception, power to realize a
wrong, or memory to retain the feeling produced
by it. Upon the contrary, he is sensitive to a
fault. And while he may have his own peculiar
notions of indignity or outrage, and his own
ideas of what constitutes suitable revenge, he is
certain to demonstrate, soon or late, that he pos-
sesses the full average of human faculties in each
of these directions. He cannot be handled with
indifference, nor wronged with impunity. The
will of the " man of the West " cannot be safely
worked out upon him, in quiet disregard of his
own inclinations and choice.

Nor is money an invariable panacea and heal'

28 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

ing balm for all the wounds and bruises which
violence or accident may inflict upon the body or
spirit of even the lowest type of Chinese. Here,
again, they may have their peculiar notions and
ideas. A trifling coin may atone for a kick or
blow, while no available sum will heal the wound
caused by a jeering or an insulting word. And
it is not always safe to assume that when money
is accepted in such cases, the bruise is reduced
and the incident closed. The lowest of them,
even the naked and loathsome beggars upon the
streets, are keen to exact every mark of deference
and respect given to gentlemen. As a rule, they
freely concede to others what they exact for
themselves. If refused, they have been known
to take an ugly revenge.

Intelligent Chinese, in comparing themselves
with Americans or Europeans, are rather fond of
summing up the results with the phrase "ta t'ung,
hsiao yi," or, to put it into plainer language, " like
in essentials, unlike in unimportant points." And
this phrase correctly represents any just compari-
son of the Chinaman with the " man of the
West." The former has frequently been called
" the Anglo-Saxon of the Orient." And any
reader who has followed carefully through the
pages of this chapter cannot have failed to notice
the fact that, so far as it described the peculiari-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 29

ties of the Chinese, it was also describing the
characteristics of the American or Englishman.

Accepting this as a correct statement or fact,
there can be but one wise or politic rule by which
to shape our conduct toward the Chinese: To
treat them as we expect other men to treat us.

CHAPTER II.

CHINESE CHARACTER.

ANY serious study of the Chinese nature is
involved in perplexities and apparently insolu-
ble conundrums. While a portion of these are
superficial and disappear with a deeper insight
and truer understanding, others are wrought
into the fibre of the man. No amount of general
knowledge of humanity, intimate acquaintance
with the race, or close companionship with
individual members of it, will enable an Occi-
dental to predicate exactly what the Chinese will
do under any given combination of circum-
stances. They are full of contradictions.

Nationally speaking, the Chinaman is a very
old man, the oldest man in the world by very
many centuries. Yet, with a fixedness of char-
acter, reaching in certain directions to absolute
crystallization, he possesses the virility of young
manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent
traits of late childhood and early youth. Any

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 31

one who takes the Celestial to be a child will
find him very much of a man. And any one
who accepts him as a man will be astonished to
discover the number of points in which he is
a child. Men wonder at his ignorance of the
fundamental principles of political economy.
Yet the cardinal theories of Adam Smith and
John Stuart Mill were fully expounded — and
some of them exploded — by the Chinese more
than twenty-five centuries ago. The clean-cut
discrimination between productive and unpro-
ductive labor, between useful and useless wealth,
was as well realized then as now. The theories
of Henry George were advocated, put into
operation, and proved utterly fallacious and
worthless, by a prime minister of the Sung
dynasty more than a thousand years ago. The
importance of temperance was understood, and
the man who discovered the process of manu-
facturing wine from rice was banished the
empire more than forty centuries ago. Yet the
Chinaman has never discovered the form of the
earth, the natural cause of eclipses, nor the only
proper and healthful relationship between the
sexes. He is frightened by ghosts, burns counter-
feit paper money to furnish support to his ances-
tors in the future state, and worships a bit of old
iron as an infallible remedy for drought.

32 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Morbidly averse to change, he is yet radical
in his ideas. While he speaks of the Emperor
with bated breath, he is a true and sturdy demo-
crat, and neither emperor, prince, priest, nor
sword can compel his thoughts nor force perma-
nent injustice upon him. He listens, with politely
concealed indifference and dislike, to earnest and
inappropriate exhortations from some diplo-
matic or consular official upon the beneficent
results of a railway system in China, sees the
selfishness underlying the remarks, and bright-
ens at once into eager conversation over the
cost of the buttons upon the lecturer's coat, or
wonders why foreigners have never discovered
the value of melon seeds as an article of diet.
He is utterly callous to the advantages of tele-
graph lines. Yet, when he once decides to con-
struct them, he threads them throughout the
empire in an incredibly short space of time, and
sees to it that each wire goes into some govern-
ment office, thus creating an unnoticed but
efficient espionage of every word which passes
over them. He neglects and disbelieves in rail-
way construction until all the world wonders,
and then plans lines which, in a decade, will
supply all the more serious needs of the entire
country. He is at once the slowest and the most
rapid of men.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 33

While upon this point, it is only fair to point
out that much of the intense conservatism of
the Chinese and of his so-called insensibility to
the manifest advantages of foreign improve-
ments is, in fact, due to obstinacy. He has been
so bored and overwhelmed! witrT advice, all inter-
ested, as he believes, and coming from those
whom he has been led to believe were his in-
feriors, that he has been nauseated with the
whole subject, has apparently declined to see
advantages which were patent to him, or has
raised questions, as his diplomatic way of resent-
ing an impertinence or of intimating that he
understood the selfish motive underlying the
apparently disinterested advice. Like other
men, the Chinese have a strong desire to manage
their own affairs in their own way. And they are
intensely sensitive to anything like foreign inter-
ference. The Prime Minister, Wen Hsiang, once
remarked to an urgent and gratuitous adviser:
" China will build railroads when she is ready,
and when she orice begins, the work will be done
with a rapidity that will astonish the world." A
more recent incident may serve to illustrate
another point just mentioned. A distinguished
English gentleman made a semi-official call upon
a more distinguished Chinese viceroy. After
enlarging at great length upon the unsatisfactory

34 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

condition of British trade, and asking the viceroy
whether as a patriotic man he was not nervous
over the prospects of China, he proceeded to
suggest that if the British Government were
requested to reorganize the Chinese army under
British officers, it might, under certain condi-
tions, accept the task. It is quite unnecessary to
put one's self into the place of the viceroy to
imagine his feelings under such language and
such a proposition. It was, however, far from
his thought to resent the impertinence with the
direct and brusque speech which would have
been the instant act of an Occidental. He was
quieter in his reply, yet far more keen. After
expressing his sympathy with the speaker in his
remarks, and deep gratitude for them, he gently
inquired whether it might not be possible to
employ American and Japanese officers as well
as British. If foreigners, and especially foreign
officials, in their dealings with the Chinese, would
remember the wise saying, everywhere current
in Western lands, " Never give advice until it
is asked," much of the apparent stolidity and
dense conservatism credited to these Orientals
would soon disappear.

For the Chinaman looks out of the narrow
slits of his almond-shaped eyes with a far
broader, more sensible, and practical view of

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 35

things than that with which he is commonly
credited. And yet, at the same time, his angle
of vision is so acute that he often gets the most
absurd opinions. There is no more perspective
in his ideas or views of life than in the pictures
which he paints. He is capable of making
clean-cut and nice discriminations, and very
fond of doing so. Indeed, he is a natural-born
hair-splitter. But he is frequently a wrong judge
of values, and his scale varies widely from that
universally accepted elsewhere. Possessing a
high standard of morals, and to a considerable
extent living in accordance with it, he yet places
refinement of courtesy and manner upon a higher
level, and condemns a breach of etiquette more
sternly than a lapse from virtue. Fine penman-
ship is of greater importance in his system of
education than a knowledge of sciences or
mathematics, and elegance of diction is more
to be desired than correctness or originality of
thought. The latter he is inclined to frown
upon. In many respects he is a most fanciful
theorist. He seeks impossible means of produc-
ing rain at will, strives to keep it on tap, as it
were, rather than the practical methods of pre-
venting famine as a result of drought by provid-
ing easy and rapid means of intercommunication
and food transport. He paints or embroiders

36 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

tigers green and camels blue, and provides toy
specimens in those colors for his children, not
because any such creations exist, but because
such distortions of nature please his aesthetic eye.
Upon the other hand, he is a close and logical
reasoner. While many of his discriminations
appear to be far-fetched and fanciful, yet, accept-
ing them as a basis, his conclusions are natural,
give evidence of mental balance and acumen,
and are deserving of respect. Two matters of
immediate interest may serve to illustrate this
statement. In order to provide funds with which
to pay the Japanese indemnity, the Chinese
Government found it necessary to hypothecate
the lekin tax receipts of the empire. This action
has produced the most intense irritation among
all classes throughout China, and has contributed
seriously to produce the recent outbreak. There
are two features of this irritation which may
strike the reader curiously. It is not felt toward
the Manchu government which gave this secu-
rity, but toward the foreigner who exacted it.
And the foreign customs revenue has repeatedly
been pledged by the Chinese authorities to
secure foreign loans without exciting ill-feeling
or remark. Why this irritation in the one case
and complacency in the other? And why
should the popular resentment be directed

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 37

against the foreigners who accepted the security
rather than against the authority at Peking
which proffered it?

The answers to these questions may show a
peculiar and over-nice discrimination, but they
will also show a logical train of thought. The
Chinaman has never regarded the foreign cus-
toms revenue as anything which belonged to
him. No portion of it either came from or went
into his pocket, and hence it did not concern
him in the least. It was made up of sums of
money which foreigners paid to the Emperor for
the privilege of selling their foreign goods in
China, or for the privilege of purchasing na-
tive goods to sell at home. Hence to hypothe-
cate the foreign customs revenue was natural
and proper. If the Emperor needed funds, the
foreigners advanced whatever sum he desired,
and retained each year a small portion of the
money which they would otherwise pay him for
trading privileges until the entire advance was
cancelled. The transaction did not affect the
people of China nor concern them in any way.
But the lekin tax was quite another affair. It
was the money of the Chinese people collected
from their pockets by their authorities, for
the expenses of the administration and pro-
tection of their interests. Their money was

38 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

being taken and paid to foreigners. Here was
double cause for anger. Not only was their
money being diverted from its proper destination
into the pockets of a hated class, but additional
taxation would be necessary in order to carry on
the government. And a bitter cry swept
throughout the empire that the people were
being taxed to pay the foreigners. It made no
difference whatever that the lekin was only
hypothecated, and that not a coin of it need
leave China if the foreign loan could be met
from other sources. The masses of the popula-
tion cared nothing for such distinctions. That
the excitement was directed against the foreigner
rather than the Peking authorities is equally
natural. The Chinese are experts in the science
and art of money borrowing and lending, and
quite understand all questions of security for
loans. The Emperor was not at fault, as he was
forced to give whatever security the lender de-
manded. But the demand of the lender for the
lekin aroused their anger. It was a fresh effort
of the foreigners to strip the Chinese. And the
end of that anger has not yet come.

The second illustration is not less in point.
Much contempt was heaped upon the Chinese
soldiers during the recent war with Japan for
their very indifferent fighting, and many broad

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 39

and sweeping generalities, complimentary neither
to soldiery nor people, were indulged in. A
corresponding degree of surprise is being ex-
pressed at present at the bravery, hardihood, and
bitter fighting qualities shown by these same
forces in recent battles with American and
European troops. Why were they cowards then
and brave now? The answer is near at hand,
and it is all a matter of Chinese logic. The
Chinaman, soldier or civilian, cares nothing for
Corea or Manchuria. They constitute no part
of " The Eighteen Provinces" which fill his con-
ception of his native land. While he has no
dislike of his Manchu sovereign except upon
sentimental grounds, yet he does not care to
fight his battles for him unless they are the
battles of China as well. The Japanese war was
regarded by the masses of the Chinese as a sort
of personal difficulty between the Emperors of
China and Japan over a country foreign to both.
They regarded it, at first, with a great amount
of philosophy, and only were seriously stirred
when the current of war swept over to Chinese
soil. Then it was too late. But their wrath has
been rising continuously since, and they fight
now because they believe their country to be in
danger. The Emperor counts for little, but
China is everything. Humiliated by Japan, terri-

40 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

tory seized by nominal friends — Port Arthur by
Russia, Wei Hai Wei by Great Britain, and Kiao
Cho by Germany — their Ickin tax pawned to
pay for the humiliation received from Japan,
their distrust and suspicion of all foreigners
have condensed into certainty and fear. Hence
the Chinese is now a fighting man.

It is difficult to analyze the Chinese mental
conformation down to what may be termed
original characteristics. It is impossible to deter-
mine to what extent customs and rules of con-
duct, rigidly and uniformly enforced through
more than a score of centuries, may have modi-
fied natural traits. He is too old. There lies
too heavy a veneer of formality, etiquette, and
propriety upon the surface to allow an accurate
determination of the nature of the substance
underneath. Then the question arises whether
these rules of life, nowhere so precise, minute,
and extensive as in China, have first shaped the
man and then in turn been shaped by him, each
acting and reacting upon the other, until all
semblance of the original character of either has
gone. Take the home life of the Chinese by way
of illustration. He is very domestic in his tastes,
yet appears not to be fond of his family. Of his
sons, which his religious notions make necessary
to his happiness in the future state, he always

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 41

speaks in terms of contempt. The veneer is,
however, so thin at this point as to render pride
and satisfaction plainly visible beneath. But
what of his feelings toward his wife and daugh-
ters? Are his indifference and masterful attitude
toward them the natural, original growth of his
character, or are they vicious grafts set there
under false rules of life and fostered by inhuman
theories? Has the Chinaman always believed
that a woman has no soul, or is the wicked belief
the outcome of wicked practice? The peculiar
rules under which betrothals and marriages are
arranged and celebrated render any affection
between the parties immediately concerned im-
possible in advance of wedlock. And the degrad-
ing position of the young wife in the family of
her mother-in-law renders suicide not uncom-
mon, the growth of any respect and affection for
her from her husband extremely rare, and exhibi-
tions of these homely virtues quite unknown.
Are these monstrosities of character natural to
the Chinaman, or has a better disposition been
dwarfed and distorted by vicious education?

Another class of similar questions furnish
subjects for curious and fascinating study. Are
many of the ideas, customs, modes of thought,
and practices of the Chinese to be taken as the
results of extreme age or of youth? Are they

42 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

the developments of a first or a second childhood?
Is the intense superstition of the Chinese to be
regarded as the religious idea gone to seed, or is
it that idea in embryo? Is his intense Chinese
feeling genuine patriotism not yet developed
into its highest form, or is it that noble trait
dried and shrivelled into mere affection for the
spot where he was born? Is his marvellous
economy the outgrowth of centuries of necessity,
or centuries of greed, or is it childish ignorance
of the fact that money is only valuable as a
means ?

The idea of filial piety, as held by the Chinese,
and as regulated and determined by law, amounts
to actual tyranny. Is this the unchecked growth,
through many centuries, of the original proper
feeling of respect and honor toward parents?
Or is it, in its present form, the original idea
which has never been restrained and brought
into proper relationship to other duties and
virtues? The Chinese form of government is
essentially paternal despotism. Is this offen-
sive form of the paternal theory a result of the
old age of the empire? Or does it indicate
a race of children who have never developed
any theories of self-government? Ancestral
worship may be called the original cult of the
Chinese. Was it, at the dawn of the race, a

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 43

simple memorial service of affection and regard
for the dead, such, for example, as the peo-
ple of the United States observe annually at
the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers?
Has it grown from that into a form of idola-
try? Or does it represent the religious idea
of a race which, at the end of forty centuries,
is still unable to distinguish between dead men
and an eternally living Deity? Is their worship
of heaven a degradation of an original worship
of the Creator, or have they never yet grown
old enough to find Him? Is there any connec-
tion, other than incidental, between the Chinese
ritual of the worship of Heaven and the Mosaic
ritual of sacrifice to Jehovah? The similarity be-
tween the two is so striking that some have been
misled into a belief that they represent the same
worship.

The Chinese have a strong natural sense of
order, which has been developed to a remark-
able extent. By rule and precedent everything
has been brought within a well-defined, cut-and-
dried system. They have strong, though some-
times peculiar, ideas of the fitness of things.
Their flowers are trained and forced until each
month of the year has its own special and par-
ticular complement of blossoms. They main-
tain, so to speak, a suitable balance of power

44 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

between the spirits of their dead emperors by
burying their bodies alternately at equal distances
to the east and the west of the capital. Their
ideas of the unfitness of consanguineous alliances
are so extreme that two persons bearing a com-
mon surname are not allowed to intermarry.
As there are but one hundred recognized family
names in the empire, the effect of this rule is
more serious than it would be in any other
country.

No father may prostrate himself before his
son, though the latter may be his emperor.
Given names or informal and familiar modes of
address must not be used between equals even
in the case of brothers or lifelong friends. No
degree of intimacy is held sufficient to justify it.
Chinese music is probably the worst in the world.
The time kept by the players is the best. All
dwellings of the better sort must face the south.
Pagodas must have an odd number of stories,
and an odd number of days must elapse between
a death and the burial of the corpse. Temples
dedicated to the worship of the heavens, earth,
sun, and moon are placed, respectively, at the
south, north, east, and west of the capital of
the empire. The altar whereupon sacrifice to
heaven is made must be round, because heaven
is round, and the corresponding altar to the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 45

earth must be square, because, as the Chinese
believe, the earth is square. Thus an autocratic,
and often apparently automatic, rule of order
and sense of fitness runs through everything
which touches, concerns, or affects the Chinese
life. It reaches to the most minute details, and
the argument that such and such an arrangement
or plan is disorderly, unfit, or irregular, no matter
how trivial the point may be, is fatal to its
acceptance. That delightful apparent disorder,
often so acceptable to the eye and the taste, finds
no supporters among the Chinese.

With the masses of the people, the explanation
that such is the old custom is a quite sufficient
explanation for any particular arrangement,
practice, or rule of action. Yet the Chinaman
has strongly developed reasoning faculties. He
has his own ideas, and is quite fond of searching
down to the bottom of things. He is much
given to argument, as those who have conducted
diplomatic business with him have found, some-
times to the great trial of their patience and
good-nature. He has a reason for everything,
which, given a little time, he will readily pro-
duce. If taken suddenly and unawares, he,
promptly and with great composure, invents
one. Among the educated and official classes
of the Chinese there is found as high an average

46 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

of logical and reasoning ability as elsewhere in
the world. Though here that lack of perspec-
tive, over-acute angle of vision, and consequent
distorted ideas of the comparative size and im-
portance of various objects of thought, already
mentioned, is not infrequently found.

An unfavorable and unjust idea of the mental
acumen of the race often comes from the fact that
in a battle of words a Chinese antagonist never
brings up his strongest forces first. He plays
with his enemy as a fisherman plays his fish. He
advances one puerile argument after another,
watching closely their effect, and only brings up
his real army when all these men of straw have
been demolished and cast aside. Sometimes he
does not care to give his actual arguments at
all. This is especially true when foreigners are
his antagonists. And many of the ideas, current
in Western lands, regarding the absurd notions
and prejudices of the Chinese are due to this
peculiar and unfortunate reticence. Half of the
arguments reported abroad as operative in the
Chinese mind to the exclusion of railways and
other modern improvements are merely these
straw words. They never found lodgment or
were given serious weight in the minds of intelli-
gent Chinese.

The ignorant lower classes are equally fond

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 47

of argument \vith their betters, and they, too,
have a reason for everything. The absurdity of
these reasons often reaches the grotesque. Yet
they appear to give satisfaction to those by
whom they are held, and a laboring man will
sometimes establish quite a reputation for dis-
tinguished ability among his fellows by some
sober yet nonsensical explanation of what is an
insoluble puzzle to the rest. Thus a Chinese
boatman at Shanghai, being asked why an eye
was painted upon either bow of all native craft,
promptly and gravely replied : " No got eye, how
can see? No can see, how can sabee? No can
sabee, how can makee walkee walkee?" (If it
has no eye, how can it see? If it cannot see, how
can it know? If it cannot know, how can it
travel?) Thus again, a Chinese hotel-keeper hav-
ing an impecunious American guest at an agreed
price of one dollar a day, when six months had
passed and no payment whatever had been
made, voluntarily reduced the price of his guest's
board to half a dollar each day in order that, as
he explained, he should not lose so much money
by him ! A group of workmen stood intently
watching the writer one day in the largest car-
riage builder's establishment in Peking, as he
was clumsily engaged in placing a pair of springs
upon a Pekingese cart. Such articles as springs

48 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

had never been seen before in the Chinese capital,
and no workman would venture to put them in
place. Conjecture was rife among the group
as to the use of those strange-shaped pieces of
metal, and many suggestions were made. At
last the foreman of the establishment said: "Oh,
I know ! In foreign lands they have carriages
which will travel without being drawn by any
animal, and this contrivance which he is fasten-
ing upon the cart will make it go of itself."
A satisfied grunt passed around the group, the
foreman was admired and respected even more
than ever, and doubtless the workmen astonished
their neighbors by declaring that they had seen
a foreign automobile.

The Chinese have a keenly sensitive aesthetic
taste. Evidences of this fact are to be found in
every direction and among all classes of people
throughout the empire. Their canons of art
vary so widely from those accepted in Europe
and America as to reach direct opposition at
some points. Yet they are keenly alive to the
beautiful. Their love for the odd and the gro-
tesque, in imitation or variation of nature, is
more apparent than real, and is mainly shown
in dwarf copies of natural objects of grandeur or
beauty. This is the result of necessity rather
than choice, and should be credited to a hunger

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 49

for the beautiful so keen that, in the absence of
the originals, they can find pleasure in the merest
toy copies. Hence all over China, in the homes
of the poorest, as well as of the wealthy, in
door-yards and dwellings, are to be found tiny
landscapes, dwarf trees, mimic caves and grot-
toes, artificial rock work, and mountains of a
few feet in height, threads of running water, or
lakes that a child might spring across. All this
is the struggle of poverty to surround and satisfy
itself with the beautiful. As such it has a right
to recognition and respect.

The family cemeteries, objects of special
veneration and regard among the Chinese, are
carefully laid out and adorned to an extent
often far beyond the means of their owners.
And the traveller will search through many
lands, and visit the tombs of the distinguished
dead in them all, before he finds a spot more
fit for an imperial mausoleum than that lovely
bowl, lying in the bosom of the Western Hills,
beyond Peking, where, for six hundred years,
have rested the ashes of the_ last line of Chi-
nese rulers. Throughout the empire, hill slopes,
mountain crags, and similar points command-
ing a wide range of vision, were chosen cen-
turies ago as sites for their temples, pagodas,
and other sacred and important edifices. The

50 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

writer stood one autumn day by a ruined build-
ing, placed upon the highest point in the Im-
perial Summer Palace, west of Peking. Upon
every hand, marring what must once have been
a landscape of exquisite beauty, were blackened,
broken, and roofless walls and other marks of
the desolation wrought by British and French
troops when they plundered and burned this
palace in 1860. Where the writer stood were to
be seen a few Chinese characters recently written
upon one of the posts of a finely wrought but
broken archway. Translated, they read as fol-
lows : " A gentleman could not so far demean
himself as to consent to the mutilation and
destruction of this wondrously beautiful land-
scape."

Chinese literature furnishes innumerable evi-
dences of high standards, in the main pure and
true, in all the directions which literature can
reach. In purity and grace of diction no writers
of any age or race have excelled the Chinese.
Few have equalled them. When the productions
of some of the Chinese poets can be fittingly
translated into a more familiar tongue, the
writers will be recognized as entitled to a place
among the few who have been able to condense
infinite beauty into finite words.

The Confucian idea of correct living would

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 51

best be represented by the single word modera-
tion. The typical human being is constantly
referred to in the writings of the Chinese sage
as " the mean man " — that is, as the man who
avoids extremes of every sort. Moderation and
dignity are the constituent elements of a Con-
fucian gentleman. He never hurries, never
gives way to excess, is considerate of the rights
and prejudices of others, trusts much to mutual
conciliation and concession, has, perhaps, less of
manliness than manner about him, according
to Western ideas, but is, in point of fact, a high •
and admirable type of manhood.

Such an ideal has, however, its own grave
points of weakness. It centres man too much
in himself. It cultivates conceit, laziness, and
hypocrisy. It can never produce the more
aggressive virtues, such as bravery, self-sacrifice,
and unquestioning devotion. It prunes too
much and nourishes too little. It is a theory for
the student in his cloister rather than for an
active, energetic man in the world and part of it.
Confucianism has produced but few martyrs and
no saints. It cannot appreciate the demand for
any life more active, hearty, intense, and whole-
souled than its own. The man who always
walks thinks the runner a fool. And if he has
been educated into the belief that a slow, digni-

52 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

fied walk is the limit of any decent, legitimate
rate of progress, he soon and naturally becomes
the bitter critic of any to whom a more rapid
gait is necessary. To the Confucianist the mod-
ern driving man of business may not be a lunatic,
but he is no gentleman, and an enemy to all that
is proper and becoming.

Such as it is, the Confucian theory of life has
dominated China for twenty-five hundred years.
In all that time it has met with no serious con-
tinued opposition, been confronted with no rival
theory which might check or modify its influence
upon the people. It is impossible to overestimate
its effect upon the character of the Chinese.
Unquestionably, it elevated them far above the
level of all surrounding tribes and races. It
made them probably the most civilized race to
be found, at one time, upon the earth. It ap-
pears to have fixed and fastened many of the
quieter virtues permanently in the disposition
of the Chinese. But it could only lift them to-
ward its own level, and leave them there. And,
in its effect upon the China of to-day, it has done
what the bandages do to a Chinese baby's foot,
shaped it according to the form and manner of
antique ideas, checked the flow of life through
it, and left it crippled.

Confucianism has thus operated as a constant

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 53

repressive force upon the natural tendencies and
inclinations of the race. And it has worked out
some peculiar and unfortunate results. It has
made China a cyclone country, not as regards
the action of the winds of heaven, but in render-
ing inevitable the sudden outburst of human
passions. Patience, quietness, docility are virtues
found to a remarkable extent among the Chinese.
But human nature, the same in China as else-
where, must have some outlet for the escape of
superfluous energy and feeling. Confucianism
furnished none. It was uniform, unvaried re-
pression. And hence, nowhere else so sudden
and dangerous, are seen in China those blind,
inexplicable whirlwinds of frenzy. They occur in
individual cases every day. The staid, decorous
gentleman becomes a maniac in his rage over
some matter so trivial as not to deserve notice.
The difference of the twentieth part of a cent in
the price of a fish, or of an ounce in the weight,
will cause white-headed old gentlemen who
have just been exchanging snuff, quoting Con-
fucius, and paying compliments to each other,
to foam at the mouth, hurl offensive epithets
at the ancestors and female relatives of each,
and strip for personal combat in the public
street. All sense and reason are gone. The
cases are not infrequent in which individuals

54 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

commit suicide in order to revenge themselves
upon the object of their wrath. Aged women,
grandmothers, shout and scream themselves
dumb, strip themselves naked, and rave in un-
mentionable words, all in the presence of a
crowd of spectators, and all for the most absurd
trifle.

These are individual, and comparatively harm-
less, cyclones of passion. It is when similar
storms of rage affect masses of the people and
sweep over great centres of population or wide
areas of territory that results, sickening in their
horror, are to be expected. Then the Chinaman
is a beast, drunk, mad, and ferocious. Nothing
is too horrible for him to conceive, too fiendish
for him to execute. Gentle, and possessing but
slight inventive faculty when sane, in his fits
of frenzy he will invent and execute modes of
cruelty and torture which would cause all the
other human butchers of history to shudder.

Many of these cyclones of Chinese fear and
wrath originate in some one or more of their
superstitious ideas. A story gains currency that
a spirit has been seen to drop a powder, pure
white but deadly, into a village well. No one
can be found who saw the act, no person has
suffered from use of the water of that well.
But this counts for nothing. In an instant,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 55

sense, judgment, reason are all unknown forces
throughout that entire region. All labor is
suspended, the people huddle together like
frightened sheep, vigilance committees are ap-
pointed, and any unfortunate stranger had
better never have been born than to come within
the grip of that raging mob of demons. A few
days or weeks pass, nothing serious has hap-
pened to the people of the locality, the atmos-
phere gradually clears, and that cyclone is over.
They are, however, seldom so harmless in their
outcome.

The majority of the outbreaks, in which for-
eigners have suffered, have been produced by
rumors of supernatural powers possessed by
them and used to the injury of the Chinese.
They were said to dig out the eyes of infants,
which with other parts of the body were used
in the preparation of a magic powder, which
powder, given or even shown to a Chinese, would
instantly deprive him of his will, and make him
the slave of the foreigner. It was this prepos-
terous lie that caused the Tientsin massacre of
1870 to sweep out of a clear sky and, in two
and a half hours of violence, to bring horrible
deaths to twenty-three foreigners, the majority
of whom were devoted Sisters of Charity. So
universal and persistent is the belief in this

56 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

stupid story of the use to which babies' eyes are
put by foreigners, that let any person of that
class pass along the street of a Chinese town or
city, and the eyes of every baby whom he comes
near will be quickly covered by the hands of the
person having it in charge.

The habit of repression paves the way for
grudge and grievance to be held and cherished
in secret. These may exist and grow for years
unsuspected beneath the bland and expression-
less face of the Chinese, until some trifle, perhaps
quite unconnected with the original complaint,
brings the crisis and lets loose the storm. The
Boxer movement must be explained in this
way. To reach its source, one must go back
sixty years, to the very beginning of any inter-
course or association between Chinese and
foreigners. To understand its power and mo-
mentum, the anti-foreign feeling, originated
then, must be traced as it spread throughout
the empire, and studied as it was fed by one
incident after another, aggravated by a thousand
mutual misunderstandings and genuine causes
of complaint, deepened by actual and imaginary
attacks upon the integrity and independence of

(the nation, broadened and widened by offensive
airs of patronage and superior wisdom and
inexcusable acts of injustice and wrong, until

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 57

this feeling reached the danger point at the close
of the war with Japan. Then followed shortly
thereafter the occupation of two small areas of
Chinese soil by Great Britain, and one each by
Russia and Germany. Still, the repressed anger
made no sign. But the hypothecation of a native
tax to secure the payment of the indemnity
promised to Japan, or, as the Chinese regard
it, the diversion of their money to the payment
of Japan for an unprovoked and inexcusable
attack upon their country — this apparently sim-
ple and routine business act furnished the friction
1

which generated the electricity which let loose
the whirlwind. Thus the Boxer movement!
It represents the wrath and hate of sixty years'
growth. It is the more violent because of these
long years of repression. And it receives the ,
hearty sympathy of many millions of Chinese
who have taken no active part in it. For, beyond
a doubt, it represents to them a patriotic effort
to save their country from foreign aggression r
and eventual dismemberment.

The Chinaman is punctilious in the exaction
and discharge of all the obligations of courtesy
and polite breeding. He may borrow the neces-
sary hat and coat, or pawn his undergarment in
order to procure them, but he will not fail to
pay or receive all visits of ceremony at the

58 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

proper time and in the conventional apparel.
This is true, not merely of the educated class, but
of the entire mass of the nation, from the prime
minister to the scavenger and water-carrier. The
disregard or indifferent observance of the ordi-
nary forms of courtesy, so commonly seen
among people of Western nations, has done
much to produce the grossly erroneous opinions
regarding those people which are almost univer-
sal in China. The brusque manner, hasty
speech, and self-assertion of the American or
European are all so many offensive barbarisms
to the Chinese. And as these peculiarities are
first noticed, they determine the judgment and
destroy any wish to prosecute the acquaintance.
The Chinese are keenly exacting in all ques-
tions of individual right. They are irascible and
quarrelsome in trivial matters. Yet they are, in
the main, kindly and charitable in their relations
with each other. The extent to which mutual
assistance is rendered among the very poor is
remarkable. They are, at least, not behind their
fellows in other lands in this regard. They are
generous and public-spirited, giving liberally to
works of all sorts for the common good. Some
of the finest stone arched bridges in the world
are to be found in China, and a large number
of them have been constructed by private indi-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 59

viduals for the common use. It is no uncommon
thing to see, erected at the approach of one of
these works of public utility, a marble slab recit-
ing the fact of its construction by some private
subject of the empire for the service of all men.
Nearly the whole of the innumerable temples,
pagodas, and shrines found throughout China
and dedicated to the service of one of the three
religions, as well as all of the immense number
of mosques scattered over the northern and
wesfern parts of the empire, are erected by
private subscription. And the Chinese support
their false religions with a liberality which might,
perhaps, put to shame the professed believers in '
a truer faith.

The weaker side of the Chinaman is that of
his good-nature. He will resent and refuse a
claim or a demand, but gracefully yield in the
same matter when shaped as a request or a favor.
He is easily accessible at all points, excepting
those which appear to touch his rights or his
dignity. These he will often yield upon an
appeal, but never in response to a demand. Few
men enjoy more than he that feeling of com-
placency which arises from conferring a favor
upon others and thus putting them under an
obligation. He is susceptible to flattery, and
easily led, but as difficult to drive as his own

60 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

mules. The success of any negotiation with him
depends quite as much upon the manner and
tact with which it is conducted as upon the
character of the issue involved. He will yield,
to his own hurt, if rightly approached; he will
resist, to his own disadvantage, if indiscreetly
urged. He is fond of finesse and delicate but
indirect manipulation, and a master in these
arts. He seldom takes the straight, open road
to an end, but circuitous paths are his delight.
The use of brute force is abominable in his eyes.
He is charged with being an adept in all forms
of deceit and falsehood. He is not untrained in
these directions. But he would hardly win a
prize, in a contest of tricksters, if representatives
of the Latin, Spanish, Slavonic, Turkish, or
Japanese races took the field against him.

With all the oddities, contradictions, and in-
soluble conundrums which the Chinaman pre-
sents to the student of human nature, he is a
man arnpng men, a man with a future, and must
be counted and reckoned with as such. Whatever
of truth there may be in Earl Salisbury's remarks
concerning decadent races, they have no possible
application to the people of the Chinese Empire.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHINESE LITERATI.

IN any estimate of the forces which lead and
control public opinion in China, everywhere,
from the knot of peasants in the hamlet to the
highest officers of state and the Emperor himself,
the literati, or educated class, must be given a
prominent position. They form an immense
body, increased each year by the government
examinations. They are at the head of the
social order. Every civil officer in the empire
must be chosen from their number. They con-
stitute the basis of an elaborate system of civil
service, well equipped with checks and balances
which, if corrected and brought into touch with
modern life and thought, would easily command
the admiration of the world.

With the exception of a few and unimportant
proscribed classes, the pathway to membership
in this order is open to all Chinese, upon equal

62 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

terms. Money or rank, theoretically at least,
removes no bars, makes smooth no part of the
road. The poorest peasant, no less than the
prince or millionaire, has an attainable ambition
placed before his son, which, if he will, he may
follow until he becomes prime minister of the
empire, " the right hand and the strong heart"
of the Emperor. And the best proof that this is
not mere theory is found in the fact that during
many centuries the heads of the government,
always excepting the Emperor, have commonly
been the sons of poor, unknown parents.

Thus is constituted, as the brains and intellect
of the Chinese nation, an immense and venerable
literary aristocracy, organized and established
fourteen hundred years ago, and continuous in
its organization and control, down to the present
time. It is more democratic than any class or
social order in any other part of the world. It
is a democratic literary aristocracy. This may
appear a contradiction in terms, but all China
is full of such and even stranger contradictions.
Members of this order are found, not only in
the great literary and political centres of popula-
tion, but in every nook and cranny of the empire.
That hamlet or village is esteemed of poor
repute which fails to number one or more of
the literati among its inhabitants. And every-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 63

where they are the learned men, and are reckoned
as the final authority upon all matters, whether
of science, politics, morals, religion, or any other
branch of thought or action. They originate,
shape, and control public opinion. It would be
difficult to overstate the respect in which they
are held and the deference shown them every-
where and by all classes. They are the unofficial
judges, the arbitrators in village or family differ-
ences, the disseminators of public news and
commentators upon it, the authority in matters
of etiquette and propriety, the leaders in feasts
and amusements, the censors of morals, the
writers and readers of letters for the illiterate,
the teachers of the village schools. They draw
contracts, business agreements of all sorts, and
petitions to the authorities. They are the lead-
ers of thought and action, the brains of the
Chinese nation. Narrow-minded, ignorant by
all the standards by which we gauge men,
heavily tainted with innumerable forms of gross
and absurd superstitions, with which all other
Chinese are saturated, they constitute the intel-
lectual force of the empire, and with them we
must reckon when we seek to measure or to
move that nation.

The course of study which must be pursued
successfully to gain admittance to this venerable

64 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

order was determined fourteen hundred years
ago, and has never been modified or enlarged
since. It takes no heed of the growth of human
intellect. It ignores as practically impossible
any widening in the range of human knowledge
or development in science. Indeed, it goes be-
yond this, and maintains that the culmination
of all wisdom was reached twenty-five centuries
ago. For the subjects of study are substantially
confined to the writings of the Chinese sage
Confucius, who lived some five hundred years
before the Christian centuries began. A sound
course of ethics, much superstition, odds and
ends of Chinese history and tradition, a trifle of
local geography, versification, great elegance
in literary style and composition, and a marvel-
lous development of the memory, these and these
only are secured as the result of the Chinese
educational system.

Doubtless such a system was immeasurably
better than any to be found elsewhere in the
world at the time of its establishment and for
many centuries thereafter. But when brought
into contact and contrast with the knowledge
of modern days, it becomes fairly grotesque in
its unfitness for the purposes which it still is
forced to serve. To this system of education
is due many, if not all, of the startling anomalies

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 65

constantly met with in the broadest-minded,
most intelligent Chinese. To it is due the fact
that one meets with Chinese statesmen equal in
mental acuteness and wisdom in certain direc-
tions to any found in America or Europe, yet
who believe the earth to be square, maintain that
eclipses are caused by a huge dog seeking to
devour the sun or moon, are ignorant of the
first rudiments of science, and who are confident
that a fox can change itself, at will, into the form
of a man. A belief in lucky days, geomantic
influences, the power of a bit of stone to divert
the course of evil spirits, and the value of bogus
paper money burned for the dead, is strangely
commingled with close, logical reasoning pow-
ers, and far-sighted, broad-minded statesman-
ship. Are they wise and able because of their
education, or in spite of it? If in spite of it, then
one must confess that among the Chinese of the
present day are to be found men who, if thor-
oughly educated along the lines of modern
thought and progress, would lead the world in
the coming years. If because of it, then what
might they not accomplish if equipped with
modern knowledge, in addition to their antique
and narrow range of learning!

It is impossible to give, with any degree of
accuracy, an estimate of the number of living

66 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

members of this literary order. It can, however,
safely be said that they aggregate several mill-
ions. In every hamlet throughout the empire
is found the school for boys, and every day from
daylight to dark may be heard the deafening
clamor of the students, as they shout out the
wisdom of Confucius at the top of their lungs.
This is the mode of study required, and a quiet
pupil receives an early application of the bamboo
rod. The aim and end of all study, the line of
ambition of every scholar in all of these innumer-
able schools, is to pass the government examina-
tions, become a gentleman, a member of the
honored and privileged class, and obtain official
position. And thus is outlined the one brilliant
career open to all and possible to every one.

Examinations are held, under governmental
supervision, annually in all the minor cities
throughout China, and triennially in each of the
provincial capitals and in Peking. There are
three different degrees granted. The first and
lowest is entitled " Hsiu Tsai," or " Budding
Talent," because he who obtains it is supposed
to give great promise of future success. The
second is called " Chu Jen," or " Promoted
Man," since he has gained the second step in
a brilliant career. And the third and highest
degree is called "Chin Shih," or "Enrolled

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 67

Scholar," because he has successfully passed all
of the barriers, and his name has been enrolled
at Peking in the final list of the foremost schol-
ars of the time. These degrees must be taken in
sequence, and no student is admitted to compete
for a higher degree who has failed to pass the
lower. The first and second degrees are granted
in the provinces. The third must be fought for
and won in Peking. Three examinations are
held for the lowest degree. Those who pass the
first, even if unsuccessful in the other two, have
their names posted upon the walls of the magis-
trate's office, and this honor is called " Hsien
Ming," or " having a name in the district." In
a similar way, those who succeed in the second
examination, even if they fail in the third, have
their names posted in the mayor's office, and are
entitled " Fu Ming," or " having a name in the
city." Unofficial village examinations are also
sometimes held by the local authorities, assisted
by resident graduates, at which small prizes are
awarded to the best scholars. Thus a sort of
brevet rank is given to those who fail to obtain
the lowest official degree, and even the smallest
children are encouraged and stimulated to suc-
cessful effort.

It is not easy to overestimate the heart, the
eagerness manifested in this most defective

68 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

system of education, by the entire mass of the
population of China. With them it is the people's
path to influence, power, and fame. No greater
hardships have been endured in any land than
are gladly submitted to by Chinese families, in
order that one or more of their number may
enter the honored class. There is no age limit
beyond which candidates are barred from the
lists, and in any country less populous than
China the number of men who spend their entire
lives in the vain effort to win a coveted degree
would be incredible. So common is this persist-
ency that, by a general order, the Emperor con-
fers the highest degree upon all candidates of
good moral character who have won each degree
but the last, and have tried unsuccessfully for
that, at each triennial examination, until they
reach the age of ninety! The long journey to
Peking from the remote provinces, involving
months of time and hundreds of miles in a coun-
try devoid of railways, and over precipitous
mountain roads, proves too much for some, who
die en route. And others die of exhaustion and
old age, in the course of the examination at the
capital.

As might be expected, great is the rejoicing
when a successful candidate returns to his home.
Immense red placards are posted announcing

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 69

the fact of his success, and calling upon all to
rejoice. Feasts are given, bands of music en-
gaged, and triumphal processions parade the
streets. The victorious student has a genuine
triumph and is flattered and praised as an honor
to his parents, to the teacher and school where
he studied, and to the village or city of his birth.
It is impossible to determine to what extent
favoritism, bribery, or other forms of corruption,
prevail in the conduct of these examinations.
If they were invariably honest and immaculate,
then China would stand unique and pre-eminent,
among all the nations of the world, in all time.
At rare intervals, memorials to the throne have
appeared, accusing officials of wrongdoing, but
they have far more commonly complained of the
sale of offices to non-graduates than of any ir-
regularities in the examinations. Some sweep-
ing and flippant statements upon this point have
been made by foreign writers, but such state-
ments, however epigrammatic and pungent they
may appear, are rarely trustworthy. It is well
to bear in mind that things are seldom either so
black or so white as they are painted. The
author has discussed the subject of these exam-
inations with probably some hundreds of candi-
dates, successful and unsuccessful, and the only
charge he has heard was that, while Chinese and

70 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Manchus were nominally placed upon the same
footing, it appeared to be easier for the latter
to secure a degree than the former.

The question of the purity or corruption of
the Chinese literary examinations is, however,
not pertinent to the object of this chapter, or
this volume. Whatever may be the defects or
abuses in either the theory or practical enforce-
ment of the system, it has been in operation for
many centuries, has provided the nation with
an immense reserve force of educated men, from
whom all civil officers have been chosen, and
who have controlled public affairs and private
opinion as well. In the judgment of a distin-
guished authority, it has secured to the people
a more equitable and vigorous body of magis-
trates than they could get in any other way, and
has powerfully contributed to uphold the exist-
ing institutions of the empire. In its freedom
from all class restrictions, it has endeared itself
to the people as a genuinely democratic road to
honor. Their own fathers, brothers, and sons
have profited by it, and to them it represents
a practical self-government, the people ruling
over themselves.

The Chinese recognize four grades in the
social scale. These are called the " shih, nung,
kung, shang;" or, translated, scholars, farmers,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 71

laborers, and merchants. The " shih," educated
men or literati, rank at the top, because brains
are better than the body. The " nung," embrac-
ing all who till the soil, rank second, because
they are valuable to the community as producers.
The " kung," in which class are included all
skilled and unskilled laborers, is placed third in
the list, because the members of this class, by
their hands and brains, transform the less useful
into that which is of greater value and service.
The " shang," which covers all men engaged in
the immense variety of commercial operations,
is placed at the bottom of the social scale, be-
cause men thus employed add nothing to the
common wealth. They neither produce nor
transform, but trade upon the labor and the
needs of others. They are simply the medium
of interchange.

The Chinese have a common saying-, which
may be translated " once an official always an
official." Its meaning is broader than those
words imply, for it covers all who have passed
the government examinations, all the literati,
whether actual office-holders or not, and forbids
them following any of the lower avocations of
life. They are gentlemen, and, as such, at the
top of the social ladder. They may not descend
to any of the lower rounds in the search for a

72 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

livelihood, since pride of class and personal am-
bition alike forbid such degradation. Chinese
ladies deform their hands with the most absurdly
long finger-nails as an indication that those
hands are never soiled by any form of domestic
labor. And these Chinese gentlemen also culti-
vate one or more finger-nails of extravagant
length, as a sign that their hands can only be
employed in some direct or indirect form of
literary work where the long nail may be util-
ized in turning leaves, cutting paper, and like
elegant occupations. As Buddhism has its
" eight precious objects" or utensils employed in
its form of worship, and hence held sacred, so
the literati have their eight precious objects
or utensils, consisting of ink, ink-stone, brush,
paper, water-jar, paper-weight, books, and
scrolls. And the only forms of labor open to
these gentlemen are such as require the use of
these implements.

Only a small proportion of those who pass
the examinations, and hence are eligible to civil
office, are able to secure positions. The supply
far exceeds the demand. Many spend their lives
in a vain struggle for appointment. The writer
once exchanged calls with a Chinese of this
class, in a provincial capital, who had spent
twenty-one years in the vain effort to attract the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 73

attention of those who had the appointing power
to his fitness for office. He called, upon the first
and fifteenth of each month, at the door of the
viceroy's office and left his card. Once or twice
each year, upon special holidays or other occa-
sions of public reception, he would be admitted
and have merely a moment in which to make
his bow before the great man and pass on.
During all of the remaining weary days and
months in each year he had no occupation what-
ever. He spent the time in bitter criticism of
those in power and of fellow-students who had
been more fortunate than himself, and in alter-
nate fits of despondency and hope. He knew
every vacancy in the long list of provincial
offices, the peculiarities and emoluments of each
post, chewed with delight every bit of official
scandal, and was full to the brim with accounts
of the wrongdoing of those in office. He was
wretchedly poor, occupied one room opening
from the stable yard of a miserable inn, did his
own washing at night to save appearances, and
lived upon a trifle less than two dollars each
month. This sum was furnished him by his
father and brother, themselves in the depths of
poverty, but who stinted themselves and went
hungry and half clothed to help him in whom
all the pride and ambition and hope of the family

74 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

were centred. And yet the only official position
which he could hope or expect to obtain was
insignificant and would not return more than
two hundred dollars each year.

This literary graduate is a specimen of a very
large contingent to be found in Peking, each
provincial capital, and every political centre.
And to this body of unemployed and untested
official talent is to be added the very consider-
able number of men who, having once obtained
office, have, through misconduct, inefficiency,
loss of a father, which sends all officials into
retirement for a nominal three years, or loss of
political patrons, caused them to be dismissed
the public service. Many of them are miserably
poor, and many of them are, doubtless, unfit to
occupy any position of public trust. All of them
are debarred from the broad range of useful and
productive labor by the senseless pride of class
already mentioned. Unless forced by actual
want, it is seldom indeed that a man is found
among them brave enough to abandon his hope-
less pursuit for office and to seek his livelihood
in some less pretentious calling.

The vast majority of them wait and wait on,
forming a body of dissatisfied and hence danger-
ous unemployed, not, as in Western lands, in

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 75

the lower orders of society, but among those
who form and control public opinion, among
the leaders of men. They are sharp, angry, and
selfish in their criticisms of those in power,
eagerly watching for any misstep or indiscreet
act, by means of which the happy occupant of
place may be pulled down, and some one of them
step into his shoes. It is safe to say that every
office-holder in the Chinese Empire, from the
cabinet minister to the obscure police magis-
trate, is watched by a hundred hungry eyes and
clutched at by a hundred eager hands, all seek-
ing, by fair means or foul, to compass his dis-
grace and their preferment. A large proportion
of the lack of vigor and energy, of decided
action, of timidity, strange to us, on the part of
Chinese officials, is due to their bitter knowledge
of this hostile environment, and of their danger
from it.

Under the Chinese civil service laws no person
is permitted to hold office in the province in
which he was born. Nor are two persons so
nearly related as cousins allowed to receive
official appointments in the same province.
Hence, if the seeker after place wishes to be at the
scene of his future imaginary triumphs, and to
press his claims in person, as he generally must,

76 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

upon those who can promote his wishes, all this
weary waiting must be endured at a distance
from home and among uninterested strangers.

A small proportion of those who are unable
to secure appointment to any place or territory
are given acting or brevet rank. Such are
assigned to occasional duty on special commis-
sions, or employed on secret service by the
higher authorities, until they have proved their
fitness, and until such time as a local vacancy can
be found or made for them. In such cases a
Chinese word commonly translated "Expectant"
is prefixed to the nominal title granted. A larger
number of graduates, having waited for appoint-
ment until patience and purse are alike ex-
hausted, sink into positions directly subordinate
to official life. They become clerks, copyists,
private secretaries, men of all work, and general
hangers-on, watching for crumbs, and some of
them ready for any work, however dirty or dis-
honest. Another large class fill a position alike
important and lucrative under the peculiar judi-
cial system of China, though considered but
semi-respectable, and for this position a word
of explanation is necessary.

There has never been a legislative department
in the Chinese Government. The laws of the
empire consist wholly of the decrees of the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 77

Emperor as they have been issued and preserved
during many centuries, and supplemented, in
unimportant or local matters, by the orders and
acts of viceroys. The legal profession is also
unknown in practice, and, theoretically, held
in profound contempt. One learned viceroy
remarked to the writer that he was abundantly
able to prove that wrong was right, and no
lawyer was necessary to accomplish that feat
for him. And rumor asserts that some Chi-
nese officials are so expert in the art of reliev-
ing litigants of their cash, as to leave no room
for the services of lawyers in that capacity.
All judicial action is settled by precedent. And,
since the records are scrupulously kept, and run
back into the remote past, every office is encum-
bered with a body of precedents voluminous
almost beyond belief. This fact explains the
occupation of the large class of graduates men-
tioned. They are called " searchers," and their
duty is to examine the records for precedents
fitting any given case requiring judicial action.
They are employed indifferently by the magis-
trate, by litigants, and by relatives of persons
accused of crime. In such a mass of records, it
is seldom difficult to find a precedent in any
given case which, by judicious manipulation and
restatement, will suit the wishes, always rein-

78 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

forced by the purse, of him who employs the
searcher. And it is probable that this class of
semi-official hangers-on at Chinese courts work
more perversions of justice and cruel wrongs
than any other men in the empire. They are
always well-to-do, and never respected by officials
or people.

There still remains a large number, perhaps
a majority of the literary graduates, who are
unable to secure any position in or even remotely
connected with official life. Some of these
return to their homes and become teachers in
the village or city schools, training up a new
generation in the same antique and inadequate
education which has proved a failure with them.
Others enter the medical profession, no special
study, examinations, or certificates of compe-
tency being required in China. These procure
a few remedies or prescriptions, look wise, com-
monly wear large spectacles, talk learnedly about
the twenty or more distinct pulses which Chinese
doctors have discovered in the human body,
administer some remedies which are simple yet
efficacious, and many others which ought to be
valuable, if their use is at all proportionate to
their nastiness. A favorite tonic with these
gentlemen is bears' bones or tigers' claws pow-
dered, and administered in wine. These medi-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 79

cines are supposed to have a double effect and
increase the courage, besides giving strength to
the body. Chinese doctors are liable under the
law for malpractice, but such cases are practically
never heard of in the courts.

Others, again, become professional story-
tellers. Having procured a small wooden table,
a dozen rough wooden seats without backs or
cushions, an awning of blue cotton, a teapot and
cup, and having stored his memory with a large
assortment of tales suited to the capacity and
taste of his hearers, the story-teller is ready for
business. Stretching his tent and placing his
benches by the side of some busy street, he
awaits his audience. He gives them prose and
poetry, history, tradition, myth, fairy tale, and
romance. After each instalment, which lasts
but a few moments, a small basket is passed for
contributions, and no Chinaman who has seated
himself feels at liberty to refuse. Doubtless
much information of real value is imparted to
the common people in this way. And to much
that is false and injurious a wider circulation
is given.

Still others again become " feng shui Hsien
Sheng" — that is to say, professors of geomancy,
or fortune-tellers. In this capacity they interfere
with, and to a serious extent control, every phase

80 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

of public and private life in China. The prince
and the pauper alike must consult them. No
marriage contract can be made and no grave
opened without their approval. They fix the
date when an emperor may ascend the throne
and a peanut vendor open his petty stall. The
name an infant may bear, the day when his head
shall be shaved for the queue of youth and man-
hood, the day when he may enter school, or
what occupation he shall follow, and when he
shall enter upon it, when and whom he shall
marry, a thousand and one other details in his
life, the number of days after death when he
may be buried, the location, line of direction,
and general environment of his grave, even in-
cluding the shrubs and bushes which may grow
near it, — all these and innumerable other points
in each human life must be fixed and settled by
the divination of the fortune-teller. He is to be
found everywhere, and is generally busy. His
fees vary with the financial ability of his custom-
ers, and often some vital question remains vexed
and difficult of solution until every possible cash
has been extracted from the pouch of the anxious
client. No other force is comparable with the
absurd and yet iron grip in which superstition
holds the entire Chinese people of all classes and
grades of intelligenceT^and the fortune-tellers

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 81

are its spokesmen and prime ministers. With-
out venturing upon an estimate of the enormous
sums wasted in such absurd nonsense, it is safe
to assume that, in a short period of years, they
would aid very largely in the construction of
railway lines, and other modes of intercommuni-
cation from one extreme of the empire to the
other.

With all of these avocations which are pos-
sible to the literati overcrowded, there still
remains a large contingent of unemployed.
Almost invariably poor, they live upon their
friends, and upon such scraps of employment as
may from time to time fall in their way. A
larger percentage of them than of any other class
in the Chinese community become victims of the
opium habit. Disappointed, dissatisfied, and
idle, they are to a greater or less degree danger-
ous. The special privileges and immunities
granted to them as a class, and the clannish
spirit, strong in the entire body, renders it ex-
tremely difficult to deal with even the most
vicious among them. They cannot be punished
or made accountable for any violation of law
until deprived of their literary degree. And this
can only be done by vice-regal authority.
Through their influence over the masses they are
often able to control and direct official action.

82 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

But the authorities find the endeavor to hold
the literati in check a most perplexing if not
hopeless task.

/ Some two hundred and seventy-five jears
after the death of Confucius, a Chinese emperor
showed his reverence and regard for the sage
by offering sacrifice at his tomb. Some two
hundred years later, the first temple was erected
to his memory by imperial command. Thus the
teachings of Confucius became a cult, and that
which was intended by the author as a code of
ethics was dignified with the name of religion.
It may interest the curious to know that the
birth of Christ, the elevation of Confucianism
to a religious belief, and the introduction of
Buddhism from India into China were substan-
tially contemporaneous events.

Thus Confucianism has been called the state
religion. Tablets to the spirit of the sage are
to be found in every school-room. Temjpjes in
his honor have been erected in every city and
centre of population. Boys in the schools are
required to render obeisance to the tablet on
entering and leaving the room, and all officials
are required on stated occasions to do reverence
to his memory. Yet this so-called worship of
Confucius is connected with and really subordi-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 83

nate to certain rites and ceremonies which ante-
dated him by many centuries, and of which he
said, while neither approving nor condemning
them, that, if observed at all, it should be in an
orderly, decorous manner. No claim is made
by even his most devout followers that Confucius
was a god, or anything more than a wise man, a
sage. His worship makes use of neither priest
nor creed. In form it is precisely similar to the
worship of ancestors, and this fact may give
a more exact idea of its nature, of the central
thought represented in it. The Chinese have
worshipped their ancestors from the beginning
of history, as the authors of their being, the
fathers of their bodies. And the educated classes
do precisely similar reverence to Confucius as
the founder of knowledge, the father of litera-
ture. If the word " worship" carries with it the
idea of a creative or supreme being, then neither
the ancestral rites nor the Confucian can be
regarded as worship or as idolatrous. Many
Chinese officials secretly disbelieve in the im-
perial cult and the added worship of Confucius.
A distinguished member of their body once said
to the writer : " We do not really believe in
Confucius. But the ignorant masses hold him
in the most profound regard, and hence we

84 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

appear to worship him, and we quote His sayings,
in order by these means to hold the populace
in subjection."

It is always difficult, and frequently impossi-
ble, to analyze any Oriental motive or habit of
thought down to its ultimate factors. Whatever
may be the exact character of the so-called
worship of Confucius, the literati have estab-
lished themselves as the champions of the faith,
the conservators of the system. By them every-
thing is referred back to him, measured by the
line which the sage is supposed to have drawn, or
weighed in his balance. To them he is the final,
universal test and solvent. And this is but
natural. They know no other measure. And
they are the depositaries of all his wisdom — and
of little else. Each of their number is supposed
to have memorized every known word that
issued from his lips. Each honors the sage, and
enhances his own importance, whenever he
quotes him as authority. Confucius is at once
his only capital and his stock in trade. Reduce
Confucius to his proper level, as a wise man
twenty-five centuries ago, but antiquated and
valueless when compared with the needs and the
leaders of modern days — do this, and the entire
Chinese literary aristocracy is made bankrup_t.

Small wonder, then, that the literati of China

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 85

have constituted themselves the sturdy and
stubborn champions of whatever is represented
by the word Confucianism! Whatever ideas of
religion they may possess — and many of them
are rank atheists as regards any god, true or
false — pride, self-interest, the natural instinct of
self-preservation, all combine to keep them per-
sonally loyal to their ancient leader, and quick
to oppose any reduction of his influence or pres-
tige. If anything more is needed to explain
their intense and bigoted loyalty to the so-called
religion of the sage, it may be found in the fact,
that the ancient rites and ceremonies already
referred to as antedating and superior to Con-
fucianism, yet combined with it, constitute the
only indigenous form of religious belief that
China has known. Buddhism was imported
bodily from India. And although the foun-
der of Taoism was a Chinese, he pursued his
studies and developed his fantastic theories in
India.

Good as the Chinese educational system may
have been in its day, and in contrast with the
crass ignorance then existing, it has long out-
lived its usefulness in its present form, and
become a hindrance and a menace to the empire.
Revised, reformed upon the basis of modern
ideas, and continued as the framework of civil

86 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

service, it would be worthy of imitation by the
most intelligent of modern governments.

The thoughtful reader must readily see that
this body of educated men constitutes the largest
single force, operating for good or evil, within
'the limits of the Chinese Empire, and dominat-
ing alike the throne and the populace. Nor can
he fail to realize that this entire force is, and
must be from the very conditions of its existence,
arrayed in deadly hostility to progress, or to any
change in the existing regime. This is neither
unnatural nor surprising. Selfishness and big-
otry are cosmopolitan, breeding readily in every
part of the world. And office-holders in our
own country to-day who have obtained unde-
served preferment by wading through the dirtier
waters of politics are neither enthusiastic nor
unanimous in the advocacy of civil service re-
form.

The Chinese literati are to be pitied rather
than censured. For nineteen centuries and a
half these incarnations of Confucian wisdom
have moved in and swayed a world of their
own — a stationary world — with neither knowl-
edge nor imagination of another just without
their closed doors, a world which swung forward
through vast reaches of progress each year, and
which was coming into inevitable contact with

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 87

their own. Less than sixty years ago this col- •
lision occurred. For purposes alien to them
and, as they believe, injurious to their nation,
their doors of seclusion were thrown down, and
they have been brought to face a new world, in
which their knowledge is thrust aside as anti-
quated and worthless, their pride ridiculed as
having no reasonable foundation, their influence
antagonized, and their very means of livelihood
threatened. Many of them are honest, conscien-
tious, and patriotic in their stern opposition to
the new order of things. And when other
phases and forces which have been at work in
China, during the past sixty years, are considered
and understood, this fact may seem less sur-
prising.

Patriotic or selfish, wise or absurd in their
opposition to modern ways and ideas, the entire
history of foreign relations with the Chinese
Empire exhibits the literati as anjntensely hois-
tile and dangerous force. Every absurd story,
calculated to arouse popular fear and hatred
against foreigners, has either originated with or
been countenanced by them. The Tientsin
massacre of 1870 was emphatically their wort?.
And the ultimate responsibility for every popular
uprising, peaceful or violent, against foreigners,
or the modern ideas and ways of life which they

88 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

represent, must be laid upon the shoulders of the
literati. They utterly thwarted the efforts of
the Emperor in 1886 to broaden the range of
study, and the civil service examinations by the
addition of mathematical subjects. For more
than thirty years they have practically boycotted
the Peking University, where languages, mathe-
matics, and modern science have been taught
in connection with the Confucian course. And
the literati, rather than the Empress Dowager,
must be held accountable for the recent fiasco
in the plans of the Emperor for reform. Those
plans, crude, ill advised, and far too radical for
the intense conservatism of the Chinese, might
still have met with some poor measure of success,
and have proved to be stepping-stones to better
things. But the bitter hostility of the literati
and official class encouraged the ambition of the
Empress Dowager. Utter failure and the prac-
tical dethronement of Kuang Hsu were the re-
sults.

Here then is to be found the most serious
factor and the greatest power in Chinese life,
whether viewed from a commercial, social, or
political standpoint. How to utilize the literary
aristocracy or to neutralize their influence, is the
greatest and most dangerous problem in modern
China. It is fatal to ignore them. They must

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 89

be reckoned with. And that reckoning will
exhaust a measureless amount of tact, patience,
sagacity, and wisdom. That Chinese statesman
who is equal to this task, who shall win over this
great body of men to even a qualified approval
of the new order and of progress — he will have
solved the Chinese problem, and will deserve
the benedictions of his race and of the world.
None but a Chinese should venture to undertake
task.

CHAPTER IV.

CHINESE SOCIETIES.

THE Chinese possess great natural power of
organization. Their uniform, systematic, meth-
odical habits of thought and action lead directly
to organized effort. Individually, the Chinaman
is cautions, secretive, and timid. Hence, he seeks
by means of combination the courage and protec-
tion which he cannot find in himself alone. In
this respect he differs only in degree, not in
kind, from people in other lands. And it should
be said that, as a rule, Chinese combinations are
far less frequently aimed against outsiders than
toward mutual benefit. They are almost never
offensive alliances, but rather mutual aid associa-
tions.

It has often been asserted that the Chinese
are the most clannish people in the world. This
may be true. But it is the clannishness of local-
ity. A great communal combination, purely
democratic in form, comes naturally and without

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 91

specific action into being. It never has an auto-
cratic chief, and its leaders are simply the old
men, the fathers of the people. Its purposes
seldom go beyond the protection of the rights
and privileges of the people of the district cov-
ered by it, and defence against incursions of any
sort from without. It is a natural sequence to
one peculiarity of the patriarchal form of the
Chinese Government, by which the old men in
any village or district are given semi-official
authority over the younger and held accountable
for the good conduct of the latter.

It develops, as one of its effects, great local
pride, or provincialism, and frequently a keen
rivalry between the inhabitants of different dis-
tricts, and this in turn results in brawls and
collisions between the different parties. Two
Chinese engaged in the same calling, but coming
from different districts, will seldom work har-
moniously together. If an American, resident
in Peking and employing Pekingese servants,
should add one from Tientsin or any other local-
ity to his staff, trouble would arise inevitably
and almost at once. And each of the servants
of the locality would, being questioned, assure
his master that the employe from Tientsin was
a very bad man, and would really believe it
himself. For " a man whom I do not like" and

92 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

" a bad man " are practically synonymous phrases
among the Chinese.

A variety of circumstances have tended to
extend and intensify this clanship of locality.
The system of ancestral worship, which requires
that each man should rest after death in the
family cemetery, has had much to do with it.
The lack of newspapers and of facilities for easy
intercommunication between different parts of
the empire have prevented contact and contrast
with other and remote districts, and thus fostered
an ignorant pride in each Chinaman over the
fancied superiority of his own neighborhood.
Some two hundred years ago the Emperor,
Kang Hsi — than whom few wiser rulers have
occupied a throne — prepared a series of essays,
familiarly known as the " Sacred Edicts," in
which the young men of the empire were to be
instructed at stated periods by their elders.
Among other injunctions laid upon the rising
generation in these imperial instructions, they
were charged not to roam abroad, but to estab-
lish themselves in their own villages and pursue
the callings followed by their fathers before
them. This advice, broadly disseminated and
taught through the empire, has given a fixedness
of home and occupation to the mass of the
Chinese people, and done much to develop a

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 93

clannish disposition. It has thrown a question
of respectability against any young men who
seek either change of place or calling. It has
given a basis to the idea that each centre of
population, no matter how small or poverty-
stricken, is best for its own inhabitants — and
hence better than any other. Thus it has fur-
nished an immediate breeding-ground for rivalry
and dispute.

Another phase of this clannish spirit is found
in Peking, developed by a different set of origi-
nal circumstances. When that city was finally
chosen by Genghis Khan and his grandson Kublai
— the great Tartar conquerors — to be the capital
of their vast dominions, men were invited from
various parts of China to come and establish
themselves there. This step was necessary to
provide conveniences and supplies for the court
and the vast army. To avoid confusion and
quarrels among the newcomers, various pursuits
and avocations were assigned to the men from
different provinces. And to this day the bankers
and builders in Peking are substantially all men
from Shansi; the water-carriers and furriers are
all from Shantung; and those who transport
passengers and merchandise to different parts
of the empire are all Mohammedans, the de-
scendants of Persians who went to China many

94 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

centuries ago. It is so difficult for any outsider
to establish himself in any calling, thus set apart
centuries ago to a class of which he is not a
member, that it is never attempted.

This clannish spirit sometimes exists as a
special combination covering large portions of
the empire, yet having no definite organization,
and specially active against the natives of some
other region. It is never difficult, in such cases,
to find the reason. Thus the men of Canton are
peculiarly objectionable to the natives of all of
central, northern, and western China. In the
horrible massacre at Tientsin in 1870 nearly as
many Cantonese as natives of France were put
to death. They are disliked and combined
against, first because they are too far from home
and are seeking a livelihood in sections of the
empire which do not belong to them, but have
been set apart by Heaven for others. Another
and more serious reason is found in the fact that
they possess higher business qualities than other
Chinese. The Cantonese are quicker, better,
sharper merchants, more agile and dextrous in
their commercial touch than the men of other
parts of the empire. They are the Yankees of
China. Hence the mutual protective combina-
tion against them. Even the officials clan
against those from the province of Canton.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 95

They do it because the latter are excessively
clannish themselves and are, at least, accused
of rendering undue favor and assistance to offi-
cials or people from their own province.

But no serious weight need be given to this
divisive feeling in matters which concern either
the Chinese race or the empire. It is a mere
surface play of wind. The Chinese have their
local feuds and squabbles, their clans and com-
binations, they may wrangle and quarrel among
themselves, but all those affairs count for noth-
ing when a common enemy or a common danger
threatens them. Then their natural talent for
organization acts in a new direction, and they
bring a practically unanimous power into opera-
tion. Probably no province in the empire has
so many clan divisions, bitter local feuds, and
factions among the inhabitants as that of Fu-
chien. Through a large portion of it there is
no common local language. Dialects so divide
up the speech that residents upon one bank of
a stream are in some cases unable to understand
the speech of those who live upon the other.
Yet in all China is found no province where all
the people have combined so unanimously and
with such bitterness and persistency against
every form of what they consider encroachment
by foreigners of any nationality.

96 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

The person who considers China as a con-
glomeration rather than a chemical compound,
as an accidental mixture of different races and
tribes rather than a unified, assimilated nation,
can have but little knowledge of her people.
History furnishes no parallel of any race or
nation, of noticeable size, so homogeneous, so
uniform, and so intense in its characteristics.
Their nationality is burned into them. They
cannot slough it off or exchange it for any other.
They absorb other races. But they remain
always Chinese. A serious mistake will be made
by any man or any government which imagines
that there exists any available points of topo-
graphical division, any lack of cohesive force, or
any lines of cleavage which may be taken advan-
tage of to effect a partition of the Chinese
Empire.

When it comes to what may be termed more
definite combinations, the Chinese genius ex-
hibits itself in very much the same corporate
forms with the same broad range of objects as
the like disposition develops in other lands.
Merchants organize in order to control the
market, regulate prices, and avoid unprofitable"
competition. Labor combines, not so much to
determine wages and hours of labor as the num-
ber of apprentices allowable, and the length of

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 97

their term of service. The servants in any large
establishment, official or domestic, form them-
selves into a company for business purposes.
Each one, in his particular line of duty, secures
a percentage, commonly called a " squeeze,"
upon all purchases, sales, or other financial
transactions. The proceeds are placed in a
common fund, and dividends declared at stated
times to each, according to his rank or position
as compared with the other servants or stock-
holders. In a private establishment, if the mas-
ter buys a house, his servants secure a small
portion of the price and it goes into the common
fund for distribution. If his cook buys a few
pounds of steak or a basket of eggs, a few cash
are added to the reported cost and quietly passed
to the credit of the common fund. If the barber
or the chiropodist attends upon a member of
the family, a few cash from his fee goes to the
benefit of this servant's collection. In public
offices the same system obtains among the at-
tendants. If a great man calls upon a greater,
the chief follower of the visitor presents a sum
of money, regulated in size by circumstances,
to the servants of the host, on behalf of his
master. Litigants in court are expected to fee
the attendants. Through the whole round of
official or private life this system is found. In

98 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

one of the larger legations in Peking the native
servants for years maintained a private banking
account, made daily deposits, and divided the
proceeds each three months. And this is not, in
Chinese families, at least, quite such an unright-
eous club as may at first appear. For the servants
receive almost nothing in the way of wages, and
this system of payment by percentages is quite
understood between them and their masters.
This form of combination has existed from time
immemorial, and is well-nigh universal. Some-
thing not unlike it has been seen in Europe.
In all the large centres of population in China,
where the numbers will warrant, provincial clubs
or guilds are formed. Each such guild is limited
in membership to persons from a particular
province who are residents in that city. Thus in
Peking are to be found a Shansi Guild, a Shan-
tung Guild, a Honan Guild, and others, each
composed of and confined to persons resident
in the capital, but natives of the province
whose name it bears. The nature of these or-
ganizations is co-operative in matters of busi-
ness, and also social and philanthropic. Each
looks after all people of its own district who
may be in Peking, cares for them and their
families in cases of poverty or illness, aids them
to return home if nothing better offers, or to

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 99

find employment if that is possible. An impor-
tant part of the duty of each guild is to see that
the dearest wish of each Chinese heart is ful-
filled— that is, to see that the body of each
member is carried decently and reverently back
to his native village after death and laid, with
all proper ceremonial, beside the dust of his
ancestors. And a considerable portion of the
funds of each guild is expended in this way.
The members meet frequently for social inter-
course and amusement, sometimes decorous and
sometimes otherwise. More than one of the
provincial guilds in Peking maintain theatres,
where plays and other public entertainments are
given.

There is an immense number and great variety
of local mutual aid societies in China. Some of
them are much like the " Burial Clubs" found
in Great Britain and elsewhere. Others are
somewhat similar to life, or rather annuity, in-
surance companies. And it is no uncommon
thing for a small party of men to band together,
each pledging himself to pay a fixed sum of
money, each ten days or month, into a common
treasury. When these payments have continued
a length of time agreed upon in advance, one
of the number, chosen by lot, draws out for his
own use an amount larger than his total con-

ioo REAL CHINESE QUESTION

tributions. His connection with the combina-
tion then ceases. The others continue payments
until each in turn has drawn this same fixed
amount, when the arrangement ends. Failure
upon the part of any member to make his con-
tribution at each due date causes forfeiture of
his share in the enterprise. It should be said
that these private lottery combinations are a
prolific source of quarrels and litigation.

Temperance societies are found everywhere
in the Chinese Empire, and have existed there
from time immemorial. The organization is
invariably secret, and nothing has been learned
concerning its ritual or the ceremonies of initia-
tion. It is, however, known that originally the
members bound themselves to abstain from all
wine and spirits (made from rice) and from the
use of tobacco in any form, and that nearly a
century ago opium was added to the list of for-
bidden articles. There is probably no national
or provincial organization of these reformers.
But they are to be found everywhere and in all
grades of society.

Nothing need be said concerning a large class
of secret social organizations among the Chinese,
corresponding somewhat closely with the Ma-
sonic and other like fraternities in the Western
world. They exist, they have their secret signs,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION JOT

grips, and passwords, and there, as elsewhere,
promote good-fellowship among men. But little
or nothing is known concerning them. They
are not in evidence as having any serious in-
fluence upon the nation, and may be dismissed
with this word of mention.

Much interesting fiction has been written
regarding secret political organizations among
the people of China. Where little or nothing
is known, much can the more readily be imag-
ined. And it is a fact, at once curious and
attractive to the speculative mind, that, while
distance in space lessens the apparent size of any
given object, distance in time commonly has the
effect to enormously increase it. " There were
giants in the earth in those days" is the inevi-
table conclusion reached by any reader who
seeks to accept much that has been written about
the remote past either in China or elsewhere.
Thus the act of a Chinese usurper or patriot,
whichever he may be called, requiring the mem-
bers of his band to paint their eyebrows crimson
before going into battle, for purposes of identi-
fication in the melee, and also with the childlike
purpose, too often effective, of frightening the
enemy, has grown in 2000 years into an im-
mense— because ancient — secret political society
called " The Crimson Eyebrows." The worship

io2 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

of the Queen of Heaven — represented by the
moon — was borrowed from the Christian sys-
tem and added to Buddhism about A.D. 1280.
A new ritual of moon worship was then intro-
duced and widely adopted. At the same time
a rebellion was in progress against the Mongol
dynasty, in which a Chinese, who had formerly
been a Buddhist priest, played some part. This
slight coincidence was enough, in the minds of
imaginative historians, to produce the " Society
of Moon-Gazers," which is supposed, as a secret
political combination, to have shaken China and
upset the Mongol rule.

One writer professes to trace these secret
societies of political malcontents back to a point
far antedating the Christian era and, indeed, the
period of authentic Chinese history. He gives
more or less fanciful names to several supposed
to have been in existence at that time. Another
writer of no less authority asserts that these
societies first appeared in China so recently as
about A.D. 1800. This last is positively a mis-
statement, as will be seen. But the fact is, as
might be expected, that very little is known
about such combinations. Their records are
not public property, their membership and the
purposes of their organization are only known
among themselves. If their schemes fail, they

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 103

disappear. If they succeed, then success puts
an end to the society, as there is no longer any
object in keeping it alive. Thus, in either event,
they are generally ephemeral, and their records
die with them.

Doubtless there have been, from first to last,
a very considerable number of secret organiza-
tions, semi-religious and semi-political, within
the Chinese Empire. The great majority of
them have been purely local and temporary,
formed to encourage devotion to some special
cult, and to effect redress or reform of some
grievance against the authorities. Or the first-
named purpose may be purely nominal, used as
a cloak to cover the second and avert suspicion.
In this shape, they are the natural outgrowth of
the clan system. They are, in fact, the clan cor-
porated into a body better calculated to produce
results. These come and go, serve as checks
and warnings to local officials, but have not the
least general influence upon the empire at large.

It must be borne in mind that politics excite
or interest the Chinese to an extremely limited
extent. In an empire where there are no elec-
tions and no elective officers, no legislative body,
and hence no caucuses, no political conventions,
and no nominees, there is little left in the way of
politics worthy of the name. There are no

104 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

bosses, no heelers, no parades, no mutual mud-
throwing — and not too much self-government.
Leaving local troubles out of sight — and the
method of dealing with them has already been
indicated — there appears to remain but two gen-
eral topics for political agitation which can have
stirred the Chinese mind during the past two
and one-half centuries. These are the exchange
of the entire system of govern ment for some
other and the overthrow of the present Manchu
dynasty in favor of one Chinese. To these two
the foreigner and foreign aggressions have been
added during the past fifty years.

So far as the first-mentioned topic of political
agitation is concerned, it finds no place whatever
in the Chinese mind. It is one of the most
remarkable facts in history, that, in all their
records, exact or traditional, no sign or vestige
of any dissatisfaction with their form of govern-
ment can be traced. The student of history may
go back through twenty-eight dynasties to B.C.
2205, about the time of the birth of Abraham,
and back from that point, through tradition and
myth, to the days of Pang Ku — supposed by
some to be a Chinese contemporary of Noah, and
by others to antedate him — and nowhere is there
to be found any indication of dissatisfaction with,
or important change in, the Chinese govern-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 105

mental system. Revolutions came, dynasties
were swept away, and others took possession of
the throne, to be in turn cast aside, but the
theory and system of government was never
altered. In modern times, the existing Manchu
dynasty came into control of the Chinese Em-
pire, not because of any revolt against the form
of government, but because of a quarrel between
two sons of a deceased Ming emperor as to
which of them should place himself in control.
The system is patriarchal and paternal. It
seemingly was bestowed, full grown and com-
plete, upon the Chinese people at the very begin-
ning of their existence, and has remained un-
changed and continuous to the present time, and
to their entire content. No cabal or open attack
upon it would meet with any following or
success.

The rule of the Manchus has been, upon the
whole, wise and impartial from the Chinese
point of view, and has given little occasion for
organization against it, excepting on purely
sentimental grounds. That the Emperor is a
foreigner constitutes the gravest charge brought
against him. The main burdens and honors of
administration are in the hands of Chinese, little
or no favoritism is shown. Viewed from any
practical point, the Manchus have not overrun

io6 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

the empire, but China has absorbed the Man-
chus. And there is no serious public sentiment
against their rule. No person can question the
thoroughly national sentiment, the patriotism,
of such men as Li Hung Chang, Liu Kun Yi,
and Chang Chih Tung, the three great viceroys
— and they would be great men in any country —
who practically hold the destinies of the empire
in their hands while these lines are being written.
They are all Chinese, and yet of tried and thor-
ough loyalty to the reigning family. While the
more intelligent and thoughtful-minded among
the people may be heard at times to regret that
the sagacious and virile power of administration
which so strongly characterized the earlier
emperors of the present regime should not have
been reproduced in their successors, and that
much laxity and corruption has crept in as a
result, yet their wishes for reform never even
hint at a change of dynasty. And remarks of
this nature come quite as frequently from Man-
chus as from Chinese.

Those in power have taken few protective
measures against secret intrigue or open revolt.
A large Manchu militia force is gathered in and
about Peking. Theoretically, they report for
drill twice each month. They have resided there
for generations with their families, some of them

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 107

have gone into business. They have lost the
last instinct of war possessed by their ancestors
when they roamed about the breezy plateau of
Manchuria, and their value as soldiers must be
rated very low. Smaller garrisons of Manchus
are to be found at certain other points in the
empire. So far as soldiery is concerned, the
ruling family may be said to depend entirely
upon the loyalty and kindly feeling of the Chi-
nese.

In the way of preventive measures, no natives,
Manchus, or Chinese, are permitted to have
firearms of any sort — soldiers, of course, ex-
cepted — and the importation of them is strictly
prohibited. Sulphur and saltpetre, being in-
gredients of gunpowder, may only be taken into
the empire on government account. They can
be dealt in only by specially licensed persons,
who are not allowed to sell any quantity of
either, however small, to a private individual,
except upon an authorization from a police
magistrate. And this sums up all measures
taken against attempts to subvert the dynasty,
unless it should be added that the capital is undei
military rule, and that the governor is always
a Manchu, and generally a remote relative of the
imperial family. Such entire lack of any valuable
precaution shows either a feeling of complete

io8 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

security or an alarming ignorance of actual
danger. So far as secret political intrigue is
concerned, the history of the past two hundred
and fifty years fails to indicate any serious cause
of uneasiness. Local uprisings have been pro-
voked by secret organizations, but these have
been suppressed without difficulty. They have
never obtained any general following among the
people.

The first secret political society organized in
China, of which anything authentic is known,
was the " White Lily Sect"—" Pai Lien Chiao."
It was formed about A.D. 1650. It appears to
have originated in the province of Shantung,
where its headquarters have generally remained,
and where it has had the largest membership.
Statements regarding membership, location of
headquarters, and other details of such political
conspiracies must, however, always be taken
with much reserve. No reliable conjecture can
be made of the total number of followers of the
White Lily Sect at the period of its greatest
prosperity. Its motive and watch-cry was,
" Down with the Manchus, restore the Mings."
Nothing is known of its ritual or methods of
initiation. Purely political in its aims, it made
but slight attempt to conceal them, under a pre-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 109

text of zeal for the observance of ancient relig-
ious rites.

The attention of the government was speedily
drawn to it, and it was interdicted by the Em-
peror, Shun Chih, any connection with it being
made punishable with death. One of the best
works of fiction in Chinese literature was sup-
posed to have been written by a member of this
sect, and was suppressed by the Emperor because
of offensive references to the reigning family
contained in it. It was called the " Hung Lou
Meng," or " Dream of the Red Chamber," and
it resembles a large number of fairy tales
threaded together rather than a modern novel.
By an ingenious substitution of false characters,
words, occasionally throughout certain portions
of the work — something like incorrect spelling
— the imperial interdict was evaded, and it has
continued in print and popularity down to the
present day. Foreign students of Chinese com-
monly read a portion of it, the smooth and excel-
lent style making it an invaluable text-book.

The determined efforts made by the govern-
ment to suppress the White Lily Sect largely
reduced its membership, and eventually pro-
duced a change of name. It became known
indifferently as the " Tien Ti Huei "— " Heaven

no REAL CHINESE QUESTION

and Earth Society"— or the " San Ho Huei"—
" Triad Society," though more commonly men-
tioned among foreigners by the latter title.
Under this name, it is supposed to be still in
existence. As recently as 1845, the British
colonial authorities at Hong Kong passed an
ordinance that any Chinese resident of the colony
who was proved to be a member of the Triad
Society should be held guilty of felony, impris-
oned for three years, then branded and banished.
At rare intervals mention of its operations is
heard among the Chinese. The Imperial Govern-
ment is still active against it, and to charge any
native with being a member of the White Lily
Sect, or the Triad Society, is to sign his death
warrant. It is, however, at least questionable
whether this organization, under either or any
name, has had an existence for years. Local
disturbances, instigated by local secret societies,
are charged up to it as a convenient explanation,
and the local Chinese authorities are frightened
by its ghost, as children are frightened by bug-
bears.

It must be said of this, and of all other secret
political organizations in China, that, whatever
anxiety they may cause the government, they
are little to be feared by it, since the outrages
perpetrated by members and the illegal and

REAL CHINESE QUESTION in

high-handed conduct of the leaders prejudice
and combine the masses of the people against
them. Blackmail, plunder, and robbery are the
means frequently employed to force persons into
their ranks. And these work their destruction.
The " Ke Lao Huei," or " Society of Elder
Brothers," was originally a sort of Loyal Legion.
It was founded about A.D. 1857 by Tseng Kuo
Fan, a noted civil and military leader, and senior
officer in command of the government forces,
during the Tai Ping Rebellion. At the outset,
its membership was confined to veterans of this
war. Its purpose was the cultivation of a spirit
of patriotism, and its motto might be said to be,
" China for the Chinese." It was loyal to
Manchu rule. The spirit which it encouraged
was not directed against the reigning family,
but against foreign — that is, American or Euro-
pean— aggression. The headquarters of the
society were in Hunan, and its principal con-
stituency was found there and in adjoining prov-
inces. And that it has done efficient work in
its peculiar line is shown by an exceptionally
intense hostility to foreign innovations and
modern progress throughout the region men-
tioned as its home. The limitation of member-
ship to soldiers was removed at an early period
in its history, and it is said to have had at one

ii2 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

time more than a million names upon its rolls.
This must be taken as purely conjectural, if not
visionary.

The " Society of Elder Brothers" has been
called a military conspiracy. If so, it still is not
a conspiracy against the Chinese Government.
It may have been used to bring the local or
provincial authorities to terms on occasion, but
no hostility to the imperial authority is in evi^
dence against it. There is, on the other hand,
ground for the suspicion that it has been the
active agent in more than one uprising against
foreigners, and of which they have been the
victims. And there are no available means of
determining whether it is still in existence, under
the same or a changed name, or whether, if
disbanded, the whirlwind of so-called " Boxers,"
now sweeping over China, has or has not in-
herited any considerable portion of its member-
ship, together with its rallying cry of hatred to
foreigners.

The only uprising against Manchu domina-
tion which has threatened serious results was
that known as the " Tai Ping Rebellion," which
burst into existence in 1850, devastated and
depopulated the very heart of the Chinese Em-
pire, and was only suppressed after nearly fifteen
years of uncertain struggle. It is mentioned

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 113

here because the statement has been made that
it was brought about by the Triad Society. Such
is not the fact. That secret organization had
incited an unimportant uprising in favor of the
former, or Ming, dynasty, and it had failed.
The Tai Ping Rebellion was brought about by
the son of a small farmer, named Hung Chuan.
He had passed the government examinations
with credit, but, failing to secure an appointment
to office, he became a malcontent, studied Bud-
dhism, and became a Buddhist, studied Chris-
tianity, and accepted that faith. A compound
of enthusiast, fanatic, and madman, he organized
an uprising with a speed possible only in China,
whose people are at once the slowest and the
swiftest of humankind, planned a Christian
government, with himself at its head, under the
title of " The Heavenly King," deceived the
missionaries, some of whom went by invitation
to reside at his court, ran from Christianity to
unparalleled blasphemy and excess of every sort,
and finally ended his own life to avoid the public
executioner. There is no cause to suspect a con-
nection between this uprising and any secret
political society.

It is too soon to speak of the " Boxer" move-
ment, or, as it should be called, The Sword
Society. Its membership, ritual, and purpose

n4 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

are all unessential. It lacks every quality and
condition necessary to success. Its only impor-
tance consists in the fact that it is the ebullition
of a sentiment almost universal in China — hatred
of the foreigner. For this reason alone, it de-
serves careful study and examination. The
masses of the Chinese people are quiet, indus-
trious, patient, given to endurance. But they
are neither stolid nor lethargic. With them a
sudden impulse has, invariably, a long-existing
cause. Ideas and feelings may filter slowly into
their consciousness, but once lodged there they
gather force unnoted, until suddenly, and for no
reason apparent at the moment, they burst into
action, sweeping everything before them. It
may be comparatively easy to take vengeance
for such floods of violence. It is far more politic,
as well as humane, to remove the cause. And
it is most unfortunate for humanity at large if
Western powers, justly assuming to themselves
a higher civilization than that possessed by
China, should, through any selfish policy, no
matter how profitable in appearance, be even the
remote cause of such unnecessary and irretriev-
able slaughter, suffering, and devastation as is
now shocking the world.

CHAPTER V.

THE CHINESE ARMY AND NAVY.

ALL military and naval matters in the Chinese
Empire are placed under the control of the Board
of War, which corresponds with the War Depart-
ment in the United States, the War Office in
Great Britain, and similar establishments in other
Western lands. In the early days of Manchu
rule, it was decreed that the Board of War should
have " the government and direction of all the
officers, within and without the eighteen prov-
inces, employed in the military service of the
nation, for the purpose of aiding the Emperor in
protecting the people. Whatever appertains to
the ordinances for taking away, giving, and re-
suming office or inheriting rank, to the plans of
the post-office department, to the rules of military
examination and discipline, and to the rates and
enrolment of actual service, shall be reported to
this board, in order to regulate the hinge of
State." Thus the Manchu Government recog-

n6 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

nized the fact that its control in China turned
upon the discipline and efficiency of the army,
and the Board of War was the most important
department in the State. The post-office system
was put under its control, and to this day the
only means for the transmission of mails
throughout China is found in the courier service
of the Board of War. The statement makes
curious reading to-day, that, within the post-
office bureau was a minor office, called " the
office for the announcement of victories." Its
post-riders were furnished with the swiftest
horses, most frequent relays, and best equip-
ments. The imperial flag, borne on the saddle-
bow, announced their mission, and cleared the
way before them. Alas for China! This office
has long since retired from business. And that
" hinge of State," the Board of War, through
overmuch regulation, and utter lack of wise ad-
ministration, has rusted to such a degree that it
turns no longer, and almost holds the door
against the necessary self-defence of the nation.
To change the figure for another not less expres-
sive, it is no longer a locomotive engine, but
rather an air-brake.

The active officers of the Board of War consist
of two Presidents and four Vice-Presidents, with
a vast array of minor authorities, attaches, and

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 117

clerks beneath them. Above these Presidents,
and exercising supervisory functions merely, is
placed a "General Superintendent of the Board
of War," and he is a member of the Chinese Cabi-
net, or Privy Council, as it is more commonly
called. He may be either a Chinese or a Manchu.
Of the two Presidents, one is Manchu and one
Chinese. Of the four Vice-Presidents, two are
Manchu and two Chinese. This rule of equal
division between the two races applies to the
active heads of all the six boards, into which the
administrative functions of the government are
divided. It is noteworthy as another evidence
of the fair-minded and impartial policy of the
reigning family. There is no reason to believe
that it affects the efficiency of the service in any
manner.

The Presidents of the Board of War are gen-
erally elderly and amiable gentlemen of high
scholastic and literary attainments, graduates, of
course, of the government civil service examina-
tions, and who have filled all the lower grades of
civil office. It is too true that a large majority
of them have proved to be inefficient and incapa-
ble, incumbrances rather than incumbents. One
venerable gentleman who held the position for
many years, and was then promoted to similar
duty in the Treasury Board, was noted for his

n8 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

" wine capacity," as Prince Kung expressed it.
He was also distinguished as a poet, though his
verses, elegant as they were, could not be said to
possess a martial tone. A more energetic col-
league once complained of this President, that his
only labor at the Board of War was to drink rice
wine, sleep, and eat melon seeds. At the same
time, foreigners must find a certain difficulty in
the criticism of unfit appointments of this class by
the Chinese Government. In no other country are
they made upon the sole ground of special fitness.
Citizens of the United States cannot have for-
gotten the story told of an excellent old man, a
merchant, who, having been appointed Secretary
of the Navy, set his foot for the first time on
board ship, and discovered, to his immense as-
tonishment, that the vessel was hollow.

The Board of War at Peking has become, what
Dickens so graphically described, a barnacle
office. Its duty, as practically performed, consists
in passing upon questions which it does not un-
derstand, as they are referred to it by the throne
for report. It advises the purchase of arms
which no officer of the board ever saw, and of the
use of which, if seen, none could venture even a
guess. It furnishes, upon 'demand, long rolls of
enlisted men, scattered throughout the empire,
many of whom are dead, and more of whom never

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 119

lived. It is, in the highest degree, improbable
that the empire has one-fourth as many enlisted
men to-day as the records and reports of the War
Board call for. It reports equipments of bows
and arrows, spears and matchlocks for these sol-
diers, in sublime ignorance of the fact that these
things, except in museums and perhaps in
Ashanti, were lost to sight more than a century
ago. It reports and recommends officers who
come fresh from their Confucian studies or from
civil office, and who know neither strategy, tac-
tics, the sword exercise, nor the manual of arms.
The board is not responsible for this last absurd-
ity. There are no other available officers in the
empire. Necessarily its reports require to be
handled with the utmost care, lest they fall into
rags. Their only safety consists in the fact that
they are placed before a cabinet and an emperor
as remote from modern life as the board itself.
Naval matters also are handled by the Board of
War. Shortly after the conclusion of the war
with Japan, it was naively proposed that this
branch of its duties be abandoned, as there was
no work remaining to be done !

The fact is that China needs an army, but has
none. She has, for the most part, a rabble who do
not know how to fight, led by men who do not
know how to lead, and all equipped and handled

iio REAL CHINESE QUESTION

under a system adopted two and a half centuries
ago, and which has known no change since. The
situation is grotesque in time of peace, pitiable
when the empire needs to be defended. Let the
situation at Peking, under the very eye of the
Emperor, and in the presence of the Board of
War, serve at once as illustration and proof.

The capital is situated upon an alluvial plain
which stretches from the sea — the Gulf of Pe-
Chihli — to the " Western Hills," which form the
flanks of a plateau. It is distant about fifteen
miles from these hills, and there are no elevations
higher than grave mounds within seven or eight
miles of it. The city is only about one hundred
feet above sea level. It is one hundred and
eleven miles from the sea at Taku, and eighty-five
miles from Tientsin, its seaport and the point
nearest to it, which can be reached by vessels of
more than two or three feet draught. Peking is
surrounded by a wall some thirty miles in extent,
seventy feet high, sixty feet thick at the top,
and more than eighty feet thick at the ground
level. The outer and inner faces are about four
feet in thickness, and composed of mammoth
brick laid in pure lime. Centuries of time
have hardened the brick to the consistency of
stone. The interior of the wall is composed of
a mixture of loess and pure lime in equal parts,

poured in wet, and rammed down as it hardened.
It is strengthened, at intervals of one hundred and
eighty feet,with deep buttresses uniform in height
and construction with the wall itself. The top is
paved and protected by a crenelated parapet. The
main city wall is provided with nine gates, each
of which is defended by a half-circle enceinte,
and surmounted by a tower, loopholed and gal-
leried. The provisions for defence are such that
assailants of each outer gate are themselves liable
to be assailed upon three sides, while any attack
upon an inner gate can be defended from the
front, rear, and both flanks. Each corner of the
wall is protected by a tower similar to those at
the gates. It is kept throughout in a condi-
tion of good repair. A moat of no importance
encloses the whole. The water supply is am-
ple, furnished by innumerable wells scattered
throughout the city. The food supply could not
readily be cut off. There are millions of bushels
of rice permanently stored within the city, and re-
newed each year. A still larger quantity is con-
tained in extensive granaries just without the
walls, and could be brought within the gates in
case of an anticipated siege. There are no exten-
sive suburbs without the city to furnish cover for
attack and embarrass the defence.

At the time of its establishment and for cen-

122 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

turies thereafter, the Chinese capital was impreg-
nable against any known weapons of assault.
And with all the modern methods and appliances
of war, high military authority has declared that
it only can be successfully assailed by means of
mines and heavy artillery.

Peking is under military control exclusively,
Manchu. The " Governor of the Nine Gates,"
as he is called, is a high official, and generally a
member of the Imperial Clan, or family. The
police are Manchu soldiers. The viceroy of the
province of Chihli, in which the capital is situ-
ated, is forbidden to approach within ten miles
of the gates, without the command or permission
of the Emperor. There are certainly more than
a half million Manchus living in the city of Pe-
king, and in suburban villages, or cantonments
near at hand. They have resided there for gen-
erations, have forgotten their native tongue, and
have become genuine Pekingese. Under a
strictly military system, they are divided, first,
under eight banners or flags, each being in com-
mand of a general. Those under each banner
are divided into groups of a thousand families,
each group being governed by an officer called a
" Chien Shihhu," corresponding in rank to a
colonel. Each group of a thousand families is
divided again into groups of one hundred, and

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 123

each of these is under control of a " Po Shihhu,"
or captain. Last of all is a further division into
groups of ten, each under a " Shih Shihhu," or
non-commissioned officer. Every male member
of each of these families who is within the mili-
tary age limit is liable to be called to arms for
the service or defence of the throne. And one
member of each is required to be armed, equipped,
drilled, to report for inspection and military
exercise twice in each month, and, in general, to
consider himself as on duty.

It would appear to a non-military observer that
no fatal defects could be found in this system,
and that the Emperor should have an army of at
least 100,000 men, efficient in every respect, and
ready for instant service, with a possible force of
at least that number in reserve. It is only when
one turns from the system to examine the prac-
tice that a most amazing state of facts is dis-
covered. These Manchu soldiers are divided
into infantry and cavalry, the proportions being
of no importance, as each is more inefficient than
the other, and neither of any service beyond that
of frightening children. They are armed with
bows and arrows, spears, matchlocks, and jingals.
The reader will find a description of the last-
named weapons in any good encyclopaedia. The
Manchu boys are taught archery before they are

i24 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

of age to enter the service. But, unfortunately,
they are instructed that a threatening posture in
drawing the bow is of greater importance than
accurate aim or hitting the target. And this is,
substantially, the only drill they ever have. There
is an extensive parade and evolution ground out-
side the north wall of the city. It is generally
deserted. When occupied, the exercise is only
perfunctory and nominal, serving no useful pur-
pose. There is no exercise, no drill, no disci-
pline, and no efficiency. The Chinese have many
books upon the theory and practice of war, and a
work entitled " The Soldier's Manual," though
antiquated, is excellent in many ways. Yet in
many years' residence in Peking, and much asso-
ciation with the defenders of the city, the writer
never saw a copy of it.

An examination into the food and pay of these
imperial troops subdues all amazement at their
inefficiency, and discloses a complicated system
of fraud and theft almost surpassing belief. The
infantry soldier is entitled to receive four ounces
of refined silver bullion each month and a ration
of rice. The necessary funds for full payment
are regularly issued by the Treasury Board. The
ration is collected, as a tax in kind, in the rice-
producing provinces of the empire, and trans-
ported to Peking by the government. It is so

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 125

adulterated in quality and 'reduced in amount be-
tween the public granaries and the private soldier
that less than one-half of the nominal ration
reaches him. His pay undergoes a process of
sweating, repeated by each official through whose
hands it passes, so effectual that he receives barely
one-fourth of the amount which is his due. In
1878, the average amount actually paid to each
soldier in Peking was nine-tenths of an ounce of
silver. In other words, for each four ounces
issued by the Treasury for the pay of the troops,
three and one-tenth ounces were stolen. When it
is understood that the pay and ration are sup-
posed to cover the entire needs of a family, the
resultant distress and hardship will be better
understood. A trifle more than a dollar in gold
and a ration insufficient for one was all, in that
year, that intervened between a family, averaging
at least five persons, and starvation ! But the Im-
perial Treasury suffers at other hands than those
of its official servants. The entire Manchu popu-
lation is combined for a raid upon it. The names
of men, dead for years, are still upon the rolls
drawing pay and rations by proxy. Small chil-
dren, even infants in arms, are reported as able-
bodied veterans, and draw pay as such. Women
do a nominal duty in the ranks and receive allow-
ances for soldiers who never had an existence.

126 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

There are neither sides' nor bottom to this pit of
dishonesty and theft.

The results are such as might be expected.
The better men in the ranks engage in some petty
traffic, or become laborers, in order to maintain
their families in decency. These arrange with
substitutes to stand in the ranks for them when
the company to which they belong is ordered to
parade. But the majority of these soldiers, too
proud to work and too unreliable for any em-
ployer, turn from one expedient to another, each
more hopeless than the last. Their uniform,
arms, accoutrements are pawned. Their very
pay is pawned, and the rice ration sold in advance
of issue. A dangerously large percentage of
them, and especially of the petty officers, fall vic-
tims to the opium habit. Many of them drink,
gamble, and loaf about, a terror to quiet people,
a nuisance and a menace to the city. Yet, to this
tatterdemalion crowd, without effective arms,
without drill or discipline, without courage or
energy — for a half-starved soldier is always a
coward — must be entrusted the defence of the
Chinese capital ! As well man the walls with the
average rabble of Chinese small boys, who con-
duct a warfare by calling names, making faces,
and throwing stones ! When one sees in the Pe-
king Gazette a declaration from the throne that

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 127

" the Imperial Capital is the source of and centre
of light and purity," he realizes that bombast has
at last reached its limit.

The body of men just described, with similar
but smaller detachments maintained in a few im-
portant centres throughout the empire, comprises
the entire Manchu army, and embraces all sol-
diers who are directly enlisted by the central gov-
ernment. In describing them, the worst has
probably been said that can be said in criticism of
the Chinese military force. In point of fact, the
management of military affairs has drifted away
from Peking altogether, and is vested in certain
high provincial authorities. The capital is re-
moved from the seaboard, little or none of the
pressure and spur of danger has reached it in
modern times, and hence the condition is worse
there than elsewhere in China, excepting, possi-
bly, the extreme western frontier.

While the government of China is theoretically
despotic, there is a large degree of flexibility in
its administration. This is notably true in the
relations between the provinces and the central
authority. There is nearly as much independence
and freedom of action granted to the provincial
governments as is found in the hands of the state
officials in America. Perhaps the extreme point
in this freedom from imperial control is to be

128 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

found where it would last be looked for — in the
military system. Surely in no other country ruled
by an alien race can there be found a situation
so anomalous. Nowhere else could it be safely
permitted. But in China is seen a Manchu em-
peror authorizing the viceroys and governors of
the eighteen provinces to levy, arm and equip
military forces, to drill, command and pay them,
thus assuming finally authority over them and
pledging their loyalty to the throne only by in-
ference. As a large majority of the provincial
authorities are Chinese, the alien ruler places the
final power of defence, both of the empire and of
his authority, in the hands of those whom he has
conquered instead of retaining it within his own
grasp.

Aside from the Manchu soldiers already de-
scribed, the entire military force of the empire
is provincial. Each viceroy and each indepen-
dent governor has his own army, raised, equipped,
and controlled under his own administration. In
other words, there are some fifteen different
armies in China, each independent of all the
others, and all owning only to a nominal loyalty
to the throne.

The utter impracticability of any such system
is patent at a glance. There is no uniformity in
the point of efficiency, equipment, in the size of

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 129

the forces, or in any other direction. In the sea-
board provinces and in those lying along the
lower Yangtze River can be found forces well
drilled and equipped, well fed and disciplined,
good soldiers in every sense of the term. In
other provinces are to be seen regiments, so-
called, to whom no injustice would be done by
classing them even below the Manchu soldiers at
Peking. No general description is possible.
The writer has seen as fine a body of men under
arms in China — saving only the lack of officers —
as can be found elsewhere. And he has seen a
ragged, disorderly gang of men, nominally on
parade, each armed with fan and umbrella, one
half bearing flags, and the other half armed indif-
ferently with matchlocks and spears.

There is utter lack of uniformity in the arms
and ammunition furnished and in the manoeu-
vre. Lord Charles Beresford declares that in
his visits to the different armies in the Chinese
provinces, he counted fourteen different descrip-
tions of rifles in use, ranging from the most mod-
ern type to the ancient jingal. In many instances,
members of the same company were not equipped
with the same style of weapon. Under such con-
ditions, any joint action of troops from different
provinces is dangerous and impossible.

While the forces, thus organized and con-

13Q REAL CHINESE QUESTION

trolled, are liable to be summoned to duty any-
where within the empire, there is not infrequently
opposition, reaching sometimes to open mutiny,
when they are called to service beyond the limits
of the province in which they were enlisted. The
clannish spirit operates to prevent them from
working well with troops from any other part of
China. There is a question as to which province
shall meet the expenses of a force thus taken be-
yond the limits of its ordinary sphere of action.
More than once, when that question has been
raised, the soldiers have been left, unpaid and un-
fed, to find their way in straggling bands back
to their native province. And unoffending
Chinese along their route have suffered more
from their violence and ravages than from the
actual horrors of war. Broken up into such a
number of independent organizations, the Chi-
nese army cannot do efficient police duty. Far
less can it suppress insurrection or successfully
defend the empire from invasion.

It is a significant fact that nearly the entire
military appropriations in China during the past
thirty years have been expended upon the defence
of the coast and the lower Yangtze Valley.
Two general officers have been placed by the Em-
peror in charge of the work. One is styled " The
Northern Superintendent of Coast Defence," and

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 131

has his headquarters at Tientsin. The other
is " The Southern Superintendent of Coast De-
fence," and is stationed at Nanking. To them and
to two or three viceroys who have co-operated
with them must be credited whatever attempts
have been made to recast the Chinese military sys-
tem, to create a navy, to place both in a condition
of decent efficiency, and thus to enable their coun-
try to resist aggression, and hence to deserve and
demand the respect of other powers. Confucius
taught the rulers of China to conquer the sur-
rounding tribes by showing them a model gov-
ernment, in which case their enemies would vol-
untarily do them homage and submit to their con-
trol. Undoubtedly this gentle theory was of
practical force in ancient times, as the relations
then existing between the Chinese and their
neighbors plainly show. But the leaders of
modern thought and action in the empire have
discovered that times have changed and that the
powers of to-day only respect those who are able
to defend themselves and return blow for blow.
Even had they the good government, it would
have no more influence upon Western powers
than the recitation of some cradle hymn upon a
mad bull. Hence, in order to save China from
becoming public plunder, they have been forced
to put her in a posture of defence.

132 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

The notable leader in this effort has been Li
Hung Chang. For many years he had direction
of the northern coast defence which covered di-
rect approaches to the capital. This fact, his suc-
cessful military experience, and his recognized
ability and character as a chief among men, have
properly given great weight to his opinions, and,
in most cases, have secured the adoption of his
plans. He has labored under the most over-
whelming difficulties. Some of his equals and
superiors in rank in the Chinese Government have
virulently opposed him from personal rivalry and
dislike. Other high officials have interfered with
his plans from motives of intense conservatism,
maintaining that the weapons used in the days of
Confucius could not be improved upon to-day.
Still others, bitterly anti-foreign, while knowing
well that the main purpose of all his efforts was
the protection of their common country against
foreign invasion, yet stupidly ignoring the wise
rule to " fight fire with fire," have sought to cast
odium upon him for adopting foreign methods
and spending so much Chinese money for foreign
guns and ships. During all the years of his ser-
vice in the coast defence, he labored in a perfect
network of intrigue and opposition along these
lines. It tells much for his sincerity of purpose
and power with the Imperial Government that he

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 133

was able to do anything against such a combina-
tion of hostile influences.

But these represent only a small fraction of the
difficulties which hedged him about. Knowing
no foreign tongue, the vast amount of informa-
tion which he needed could only reach him fil-
tered through interpreters or translators. It is
hardly necessary to say that it was colored fre-
quently to suit the purchased preference of some
subordinate. There was a perennial stream of
agents coming from all lands and the islands of
the sea, all bound to the vice-regal office at Tien-
tsin. Men with guns to sell, men with torpe-
does to sell, men with ships to sell, men with rifles
to sell, men with revolvers and ammunition,
and swords and cavalry equipments, and infan-
try equipments, and artillery equipments, and
medicines, and surgical implements, and salve
and lint and bandages, and hospital supplies, and
tents, and flags, and gunpowder and dynamite,
men with all the crank and crazy inventions of all
ages, men with patent schemes warranted to de-
stroy a million of the enemy each minute of time
and all done without danger — to the inventor —
all these, and many unenumerated, hurried to
Tientsin. Each man's gun was the best. Each
man's torpedo was the only reliable instrument
of modern warfare. Each man's ship was war-

i34 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

ranted to outsail, outfight, and outram any other
ship that ever floated upon the water. It needed
neither sailors nor soldiers to man it. It was
self-operative, and carried automatic death to all
enemies of China.

And the unfortunate Northern Superintend-
ent of Coast Defence knew nothing of the com-
parative merits or virtues of any of these mar-
vellous appliances of modern war. The agents
made friends of his subordinates and interpre-
ters. They bribed clerks and doorkeepers. They
interviewed his cook and flattered his barber.
They sought consular and even diplomatic assist-
ance. They expended money, in the more deli-
cate way, by making costly presents, and in the
more direct and grosser form of bribery — all of
which was eventually to be included and recouped
in the price. And in this same way, pledges of
extravagant commissions were made to persons
having access to and influence with His Excel-
lency, contingent upon successful negotiation.
The result of which was to increase the cost to
China of articles purchased far beyond the proper
limit, and to teach new forms of dishonesty to
those sufficiently well versed in the practice.
When it was found impossible to effect a sale at a
price thus exaggerated, lower terms were ac-
cepted, and inferior and discarded articles were

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 135

substituted for those which had passed a govern-
ment test, as required by contract. And this was
sometimes done even without that excuse. Upon
one occasion a number of guns were ordered from
Europe, through an agent at Tientsin, for the
armament of the forts at Taku. In due time
they arrived and were placed in position. Upon
being fired for the first time, three of them ex-
ploded in succession, killing a number of soldiers
and wounding many others. A close 'examina-
tion by a foreign expert disclosed the fact that
not one of the guns was properly constructed or
could be used with safety. A large quantity of
discarded and condemned rifles were sold to the
Chinese Government at prices which would be
extravagant for the best and most modern arm.
This was accomplished sometimes through the
cupidity of petty military officers, but more often
through their ignorance.

Still other difficulties arose from the lack of
officers and men familiar with modern weapons,
and competent to care for and use them when
purchased. In some cases, expensive military
machines were wantonly rendered worthless by
petty officials, who had either not been bribed by
the agent who sold them or had been " seen " by
a rival agent. But in the great majority of in-
stances, ignorance, carelessness, and neglect were

136 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

thus responsible for the destruction of large
quantities of expensive government property.
Viceroy Li was continually listening to the ur-
gent advice of diplomatic and consular officials,
sometimes disinterested and sometimes not, upon
the importance of procuring modern arms; the
agent body brought an intense pressure upon him
to purchase; large funds were in hand for that
purpose; the imperial authorities were eager to
see something done to protect the coast near Pe-
king; and his own anxieties lay in the same direc-
tion. Under such combination of pressure, it is
not to be wondered at that he should have made
extensive purchases of war material, overlooking
the fact, peculiarly true of modern arms, that
officers and men, trained and skilful in the use
and care of weapons and war material, should
first be provided.

But just there lay the crucial point of the entire
business of recreating a Chinese army and navy.
So long as her supply of funds lasted, China
could purchase anything needed for either. The
whole civilized world was eager to supply her.
But she could not purchase trained officers and
disciplined soldiers in any market. They must
be bred and educated in China, raised from
among her own people. There was no lack of
consideration of this branch of his task on the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 137

part of Viceroy Li. It was this that led him, in
co-operation with the Southern Superintendent
of Coast Defence, to adopt a plan proposed by
Yung Wing of sending a considerable number of
Chinese boys to the United States for education.
One hundred and twenty boys from middle-class
families, averaging about nine years of age, were
thus sent, under suitable control and care. The
important purpose of this educational mission, as
it was called, was, after the necessary preliminary
studies had been passed, to select the most tal-
ented among the students, and divide them be-
tween the government academies at West Point
and Annapolis. In this way it was hoped that
thirty or forty trained military officers and an
equal number of naval officers would be secured.
The scheme was most carefully devised, was put
into operation in 1872, and, up to a certain point,
was remarkably successful. No equal number of
students from any part of the world, sent abroad
at such an age and under the same conditions,
would have made a higher record than did these
proteges of the Chinese Government.

While this plan was in operation, Viceroy Li
requested an eminent military officer to draft a
detailed plan for a military school for China. The
request was provisionally granted, but on the
necessary reference being made by the officer to

138 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

his own government, he received a mild rebuke,
with the added remark that it was the wish of that
power " to aid the Chinese only in the peaceable
pursuits of commerce." In 1878, when certain of
the Chinese students were qualified to enter West
Point or Annapolis, the government made re-
quest of the proper authorities at Washington for
their admission. But the question of Chinese
immigration was creeping into politics upon the
Pacific Coast, the two great parties were some-
what closely balanced throughout the country,
and no official in Washington was found ready
to secure that action by Congress, without which
aliens cannot be admitted to those academies.
This was peculiarly unfortunate in its effect upon
the Chinese, as Japanese students were known to
be pursuing their studies in the Naval Academy
at that time. After renewing their request at in-
tervals for three years, the Chinese authorities
abandoned the scheme, and recalled the students
to their native land.

Efforts made to secure foreign instructors for
military or naval schools in China can hardly be
said to have resulted more successfully. And
the cause of failure has not been always, or en-
tirely, with the Chinese. The difficulties in the
way of success have been very great. It is al-
most impossible to communicate instruction, es-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 139

pecially of any technical sort, by means of an
interpreter. Yet instructors who knew Chinese
were unobtainable, and there were practically no
students in the empire who were familiar with
any foreign tongue. Nor were there any mod-
ern military or naval text-books in Chinese.

There were other and unnecessary difficulties
preliminary to these. There were rivalry and
competition, intriguery and wire-pulling, arising
in some cases to the dignity of diplomatic corre-
spondence, on the part of European governments
represented at Peking, each eager to secure for
some native of its own country any prominent
or influential position which the viceroy proposed
to fill with a foreigner. Though not in the mili-
tary or naval service, the position of Inspector-
General of Customs, filled so long and with such
distinguished ability by Sir Robert Hart, may
well furnish an example. For the past fifteen
years, the question of his successor has been the
foundation of almost continuous squabbles — they
deserve no better word — to the great embarrass-
ment and annoyance of the Chinese Government.
Great Britain demands that the post be filled by
a British subject, Russia claims it, Germany has
a candidate, and France gestures in the back-
ground. What China may prefer receives no
consideration. The proceeding resembles far

140 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

more closely the struggle between the heirs of a
dead person over the appointment of an adminis-
trator to his estate than the selection of some
competent person whose sole aim should be to
render loyal service to the government which em-
ploys him. Intrigue does not cease when any
appointment of a foreigner has been made.
Petty Chinese officials combine to thwart his
plans and prevent his success. And these have,
on too many occasions, received foreign assist-
ance.

Foreign appointees have sometimes reached
their posts of duty with the most grossly exag-
gerated ideas of the importance of their positions,
ideas quite unwarranted by the terms of contract
or by any statements made to them. They have
assumed the right to decide from whom they
would consent to receive orders, and to judge for
themselves whether orders, even when thus re-
ceived, should or should not be obeyed. It is
hardly necessary to say that the employment of
such men has always ended in disastrous failure.
Some years ago Viceroy Li engaged two foreign
military officers as instructors at Tientsin. They
were under contract for a term of five years, at
salaries far larger than any sum they had ever
received before, their expenses to and from China
being also allowed them. One had only seen so

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 141

much military service as would come within the
knowledge of an assistant paymaster of troops.
The other had obtained the rank of lieutenant in
the armies of his country, had been invited to
resign therefrom, and, at the time of making his
Chinese engagement, was conducting a small
manufactory of cigarettes. When these gentle-
men reached Tientsin, they declined to receive
orders from any other authority than Viceroy Li,
and claimed military rank next to him. After
wasting eighteen months in argument and en-
treaty, during which time they performed no
duty but that of receiving their monthly salaries,
a proposition was submitted to them that they
cancel their contracts and return home upon re-
ceipt of full pay for half the time specified, and
travelling expenses each way. They declined.
They would only return home upon receipt of
their salaries for the full term of five years, and
the expenses of the journey. They were sus-
tained in this position by their diplomatic and
consular authorities, to whom appeal was made
by the Chinese. And in this manner their en-
gagement was finally ended.

Upon the close of the war between China and
Japan, the Southern Superintendent of Coast
Defence engaged a number of German officers as
instructors and organizers of a military force at

REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Nanking. They too were under contract for a
term of years at far higher rates of compensation
than they had ever received before. Only one or
two of them had held official rank in the German
army. The remainder had held only petty rank,
and were of no value excepting as drill-masters.
They were under no subordination among them-
selves, each having been engaged independently
and owing no obedience to the others. From the
time of their arrival at Nanking they lived in a
condition of almost chronic drunkenness, were
seldom fit for any duty, and continually insulted
and abused peaceable Chinese upon the public
streets. Popular feeling was excited against
them by this conduct, and when they broke open
private residences, and attempted assault upon
Chinese wives and mothers, they were attacked by
a mob and narrowly escaped the death they fully
deserved. These are the facts of the " ferocious
assault upon German officers by a Chinese mob,"
so widely heralded throughout America and Eu-
rope at the time. And the viceroy at Nanking
rid himself of his German employes with as little
pecuniary loss to the government and as little
noise as possible.

Meshed in such an entanglement of envy, ig-
norance, superstition, antique ideas, impractica-
ble theories, open and concealed treachery, bribe

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 143

giving and taking, conflicting interests and inter-
ested counsel, without reliable means of access to
necessary knowledge, without skilled advisers or
subordinates among his own people, the only
wonder is that the efforts of Viceroy Li resulted
in anything other than unqualified failure. Yet
he accomplished much of practical value to China
in military and naval matters, and much in many
other directions not to be noticed here. Those
who admire genius, ability, and tenacity of pur-
pose may well bow to the great Chinese viceroy
as one of the world's heroes.

Prior to 1862 China had no navy. A few
small and unwieldy junks, intended only for
coast duty, equipped with small cast-iron guns,
dangerous only to the sailors on board, and not
even able to run away with a fair rate of speed —
these, and a host of small river craft propelled by
oars, and mounting one cast-iron gun each, in-
tended for the suppression of piracy and smug-
gling, completed the list of her vessels of war.
In the year named, the Peking authorities decided
to procure two or three modern ships as the be-
ginning of a new navy. And the experience to
which they were subjected, at the very outset of
their efforts to provide means of defence upon the
high seas, falls into place here. To accomplish
this purpose they sent Mr. Horatio N. Lay, for-

144 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

merly a British consular officer, but then in the
employ of the Chinese customs, to England as
their agent, with the necessary instructions and
funds. It soon became evident that Mr. Lay had
ideas of his own. He notified the Chinese au-
thorities that he had fixed upon a national ensign
for the new navy, that it was to be " a green flag,
bearing a yellow diagonal cross." And he re-
quested that the Emperor issue a decree to that
effect in the Peking Gazette. Prince Kung, then
regent of the empire, notified Mr. Lay that the
Chinese ensign would be " of yellow ground,
and on it will be designed a dragon with his
head toward the upper part of the flag."

Mr. Lay returned to China with the new fleet
in the early summer of 1863. It then appeared
that, instead of securing the two or three ships as
directed, he had purchased seven men-of-war and
a store-ship. They were manned throughout with
British officers and crews, all engaged at high
wages for the new Chinese navy. As commo-
dore of the fleet, Captain Sherrard Osborne had
been commissioned. And an exceedingly inter-
esting agreement had been entered upon between
the commodore and Mr. Lay, under the terms of
which the former was to obey no orders received
from any other authority than the Emperor of
China, which orders to be valid must be counter-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 145

signed by the latter. And Mr. Lay, upon his
part, promised and agreed to countersign no or-
ders unless they appeared to him "to be reason-
able " ! It hardly seems possible, but there were
those who held that China should be forced to
accept and pay for this fleet, and employ it sub-
ject to these terms and conditions. She declined
to do either. And thanks to the good sense of
the British Minister and the good offices of the
United States representative, the officers and
crews were sent home to England and the vessels
disposed of. Mr. Lay did not continue in the
service of the Chinese Government.

It is a serious mistake to suppose that the
Chinaman lacks the qualities which make a good
soldier. He is sober, obedient, doggedly persist-
ent, and easily controlled. He possesses much
of that fatalism which made the soldiers of Ma-
homet so reckless of danger. The Chinese sol-
dier has proved his courage upon so many occa-
sions, that it should be questioned no longer.
Always called upon in modern times to face
modern repeating rifles and Maxim guns, armed
with matchlocks and spears, or with modern arms
in the use of which he had not been trained, fur-
nished not infrequently with ammunition fitted
to another weapon than that which he carried,
without officers competent to lead, half fed,

146 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

clothed in rags, undisciplined, he still has given
many examples of splendid bravery. Well fed,
well clothed, well disciplined and well led, the
Chinese soldier will prove himself entirely com-
petent and ready to protect his native land. And,
other things being equal, if the ratio of fighting
men to the total population is the same in China
as in the United States, she is able to put 60,000,-
ooo of men into the field.

But, in addition to fatal defects of organization
and administration already pointed out, there are
no skilled officers in either the military or naval
branch of the service. Until these are trained,
and have trained their men, any efficient defence
of the empire is impossible. To those who knew
the man, the last days of brave old Admiral Ting,
of the Chinese navy, make a most pathetic
picture, and furnish proof of what has just
been said. Able, conscientious, and patriotic, he
knew little of modern naval warfare beyond what
had come to him by practical experience, after he
was past middle life. He knew the tremendous
power of the fleet placed under his command dur-
ing the war with Japan. And he knew that he
did not know how to bring that power into full
effect against the enemy. He knew that his men
would fight, but that he did not know how to use
them. Under the stress of these feelings, and as

1 47

he was on the point of leaving Wei Hai Wei to
engage once more in battle, he received a
cowardly order from Peking to remain in harbor.
Then he took his own life.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MISSIONARY.

AMONG the varied forces operating in China
like yeast in flour, the Christian missionary must
be given a prominent position. And, for the pur-
poses of this volume, the material, intellectual,
and moral effects of his presence and teaching
must be kept clearly in mind, as well as those
which are purely religious.

Much hostile comment upon their work is rife
in so-called Christian lands — more perhaps than
among the Chinese themselves. Some of these
criticisms are flippant and malicious. They
come from a class of foreigners — small it is to be
hoped — whose lives and business constitute a
menace to society and a reproach to civilization.
Naturally they do not love the missionaries, for
the labors of the latter are not likely to increase
the sales of opium and ardent spirits among the
Chinese, or to prosper any other forms of vice.
The comments of these gentlemen deserve but

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 149

slight notice. The Chinese question does not
furnish the first occasion in which the wolf has
accused the lamb of foiling the water, nor is it A.
likely to be the last.

Another class of objectors to the presence of
the missionary in China deserve more serious
consideration. Some among them insist that the
missionary is ahead of his time, and hence out
of place in China. They argue that modern
civilization and commerce should first be allowed
to do their work, and then the missionary might
follow and reap his harvest. Just how much
might be left for him to glean and to garner after
these two forces had done their work, the advo-
cates of the policy have, perhaps, not seriously
considered. With opium as the chief corner-
stone upon which the fabric of British commerce
in China has been builded ; with an eager, selfish
spirit of money-getting, ready to pander to every
native vice, and to import even grosser vices
from abroad so long as the Chinese can pay
the bill; with object lessons in drunkenness,
gambling, and adultery, found thick in every
centre of foreign trade in China, the question
may well be raised and repeated : What would be
left for the missionary to gather after a non-
christian civilization and an unchristian com-
merce had done their work and reaped their har-

150 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

vest? That the Christian missionary invariably
1 finds his best field and greatest success in interior
districts, where the presence and habits of some
commercial foreigners have not prejudiced the
Chinese against everything from abroad, is a
humiliating fact. But it furnishes an answer,
final and destructive, to the theory above men-
tioned.

The Chinese, as a nation, possess a high stand-
ard of morals. Whether they invariably live
up to it is a question not pertinent to the ar-
gument. They measure foreigners by it, at least,
as closely as themselves. That distinguished
Englishman, Burke, wrote : " Our manners, our
civilization, and all the good things connected
with manners and with civilization, have, in this
European world of ours, depended for ages upon
; two principles : the spirit of a gentleman and the
spirit of religion." Which is to say that the
highest type and most perfect product of true
civilization is a Christian gentleman. And the
commercial exponent of true Western civilization
and the Christian teacher must work together.
Nothing can be more preposterously untrue than
the assertion of a prominent English writer, who,
speaking of the missionaries in China, says:
" But with their lives they risk the cause of civili-
zation." Scarcely less absurd is his declaration

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 151

that " the manner in which the missionaries have
been smuggled into the country against the will
of the people, and the injudicious methods by
which they have sought to establish their religion,
are mainly responsible for the anti-foreign feel-
ing which is so subversive of our (British) in-
terests in the Far East." The same writer
glosses over and excuses the hideous opium traf-
fic, as being the scapegoat for other events. But
these questions will receive notice in other por-
tions of this volume.

It is, however, desirable to notice here one
other sweeping assertion made by this same
authority. He attributes all the absurd stories
of the immorality of foreigners, and missionaries
especially, to the fact that large numbers of
young women have been sent out to labor among
their own sex in China, and that they travel
around under the escort of a man. Then he
adds : " In the opinion of the Chinese, the proper
place for women is the domestic hearth, and no
good is likely to come of taking her out of her
sphere — a lesson which the men of the West are
learning by bitter experience." Fortunately this
gentleman is an Englishman! The writer will
yield to none in urging that the missionary should
pay a decent regard to the customs and prejudices
of the people among whom he labors. Much of

(I

152 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

his success depends upon his doing so, and possi-
bly sufficient care is not always exercised upon
this point. But the very sweeping statements
made in the paragraph from which this criticism
is taken affect all foreigners who may be in
China. And if the ideas of the gentleman were
followed, each foreign home in that empire must
be transformed into a harem, or all wives and
other foreign ladies must be sent out of the coun-
try.

It is unquestionably true that very mistaken
notions and ideas are entertained by the Chinese
when they first see the free and friendly manner
in which Americans and Europeans of the two
sexes associate. But the Chinese are not stupid
nor slow to discover facts and draw correct in-
ferences. And when a little time has passed and
these same Chinese see that no evil nor immoral
results have come; that these single women are
neither bawds nor concubines, but lead lives of
the highest morality; that the wives are equally
intelligent with their husbands, their companions
and advisers, instead of playthings and servants ;
then these same Chinese admit a new idea, and
the change needed more than any other in China,
the elevation of woman, begins to work in their
minds. If the missionaries in that vast empire
had accomplished nothing more during the half

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 153

century past than to furnish object lessons of the'1
true position of woman, and the highest type of
Christian homes, that result alone would justify- «
their presence in China and the money invested
in the enterprise.

In the course of a long conversation with a
high Chinese official, whose name need not be
mentioned, upon the broad differences between
the ideas and customs of the East and the West,
that official said to the writer : " In one matter
you are unquestionably right and we are alto-
gether wrong. We treat our wives and daugh-
ters as though they were animals, rather than
human beings; you make no discrimination be-
tween your sons and your daughters, giving
both the same treatment and the same education.
Of course, China cannot produce able and pro-
gressive men when the mothers have, for many
hundred years, been kept stupid and without any
education. I believed as every other Chinaman
did about women, ur.til I met some of your for-
eign ladies and saw your homes. Then I knew
that upon ^at point we were all wrong, and I saw
that China would never change for the better un-
til the mothers were educated and intelligent. In
that matter I have adopted the foreign custom.
I have three sons and two daughters, and I give
the latter exactly the same treatment and the

i54 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

same education as the former. In that you are
right and we are wrong. But I am obliged to
use great caution and to conceal the fact that my
daughters are being schooled. Were it known,
I should be accused of following a foreign cus-
tom, which would cause me serious trouble, and
might result in the loss of my rank and official
position."

Work among the Chinese women, whether
educational, medical, social, or religious, can only
be done by persons of their own sex. The criti-
cism of and opposition to the presence of female
missionaries in China, made by persons solely in-
terested in the development of commerce there,
are short-sighted even from their own standpoint,
and in view of their own interests. In point of
fact, the entire missionary body is a most valu-
able ally to every form of legitimate foreign
trade. While their purpose is religious, they are,
unconsciously perhaps, yet of necessity, true, un-
paid " commercial agents." They speak the lan-
guage, which is never the fact with merchants;
they penetrate and reside in interior districts
which the merchant never reaches; their houses
and contents, their clothing, utensils and ap-
pliances of every sort, constitute, at each mission
station, and as they travel, a miniature exposition
of the thousand and one conveniences and com-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 155

forts which foreigners possess and which they
lack. Wonder gives place to admiration, ad-
miration to the desire to possess. Millions of the
natives of China never knew how uncomfortable
they were, how much they lacked, until brought
thus to compare their crude inventions and
clumsy appliances with the immeasurably supe-
rior articles brought into their midst by the mis-
sionaries. Before any man can be elevated, he
must first be made discontented. As the agent
of a wholesome discontent, the missionary is an
invaluable aid to commerce. He probably brings
far more customers to the foreign merchant than
converts to his own system of faith, however suc-
cessful he may be in his direct work.

It is far too commonly believed that mission-
aries are at once the main cause and the special
object of the anti-foreign feeling, so universal
and so intense throughout China. The facts sus-
tain no such belief. Missionaries, as such, have
had little to do with this bitter and persistent hos-
tility to foreigners among the Chinese. They
have suffered heavily from it, but it is not of their
creation. Christianity is objected to, not so
much because it is Christianity as because it is a
Western religion. And those who preach it are
objectionable to the Chinese, not as preachers of
a new faith, but as foreigners. What is the real

156 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

root of this anti-foreign feeling may be pointed
out later on. But it is not to be found in the
calling, conduct, or labors of the missionary. In
cases where the feeling appears to be peculiarly
directed against this class, investigation will in-
variably develop the fact that their religious call-
ing is believed to be a mere cloak, and that they
are really secret foreign political agents. While
this whole question has been put wrong end fore-
most most industriously, there can be no mistake
as to the facts. Any person who has moved
familiarly among all classes of the Chinese, and
conversed with them in their own tongue, must
know that this is true.

Naturally the literati are not friendly to the
missionaries. The latter represent new ideas, a
new education, and a new national life, each of
which is inimical to their pretensions. They hate
them as foreigners, and especially as the class of
foreigners whose labors threaten most directly the
ascendency of their influence over China. So far
as the Christian religion is concerned, the feeling
of the literati is merely one of utter indifference.
This was most plainly shown in the Parliament
of Religions held in connection with the Co-
lumbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. Pung
Kwang Yu, a commissioner from China and a
distinguished Confucianist, was requested to rep-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 157

resent and expound his faith in the Parliament.
In the conclusion of his statements, which cover
some seventy pages of closely printed matter, he
said : " As I have said before, the progress of
Christianity does not concern Confucianists in
the least." A very large proportion of the literati
are utter disbelievers in any cult or religion — ag-
nostics in the strongest sense of the word. Thus,
sitting beside a member of the literary class one
afternoon in a chapel in Peking, and listening to
an earnest explanation of the Christian faith, the
writer overheard his neighbor say : " Wo ch'uan
puh hsin. Ch'ih pao la, chio hao la." " I do
not believe a word of it. Let a man eat to the
full and he is all right."

It is not to be questioned that mobs and violent
disturbances in China are more frequently di-
rected against missionaries than other foreigners.
The explanation of this fact is very simple. All
other classes of foreigners live at the treaty
ports under the guns or within easy reach of the
ubiquitous man-of-war. They have little direct
connection with the masses of Chinese, and
seldom or never come into contact with them.
And those Chinese who do live at the ports have
learned, by bitter experience, the danger of troub-
ling the foreigner. Only very exceptional cir-
cumstances can arouse them to any acts of vio-

158 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

lence. The missionaries alone live in interior
districts, in little groups, beyond military or naval
protection, and with no means of defence. They
are in direct contact with the natives, and are the
first, because the handiest, victims to any anti-
foreign uprising.

And so, again, the charge and complaint
against Chinese who have become Christians —
Protestant or Roman Catholic — is not that they
have apostatized from the Confucian, or Bud-
dhist, or Taoist cult, but that " they have become
foreigners" They have deserted their country.
This sentiment among the Chinese may be called
intense and jealous patriotism, nationalism, pride
of race, or whatever else the reader may choose,
but it is their connection with the foreigners, not
with Christianity, which forms the gravamen of
the charge against converts, and for which imag-
inary renunciation of China, many have been
called upon to die.

Here again is evidence that any opposition to
the missionary which may exist among the Chi-
nese is aroused not so much by his teaching
as by his nationality. A suspicion of some sort,
not originating in, but attaching to him, a fear
of ulterior motives and results, created and kept
alive by something entirely apart from his calling,
and for which he is in no sense responsible — to

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 159

these must be charged all active dislike of the
missionary and his work. Walls, built by the
supposedly hostile purposes and designs of others,
hedge him away from the confidence of the peo-
ple. He suffers because of the land from which
he comes and the company which he keeps.

There is no sufficient ground for the assertion,
sometimes made, that missionaries have been
smuggled into the interior of China, against the
will of the government and people, by taking ad-
vantage of the interpolation of a spurious clause
in the French treaty of 1858. It is a fact that
a spurious clause was added to the Chinese text
of that treaty by a French missionary, who was
acting as interpreter. The body of the article,
thus meddled with, provided that missionaries,
being engaged in philanthropic work, should, to-
gether with their converts, receive the protection
of the Chinese Government. It conceded no spe-
cific right of residence in the interior. The in-
terpolated clause contained these words : " It is,
in addition, permitted to French missionaries to
rent and purchase land in the interior, and to con-
struct buildings thereupon at their convenience."
As has been stated, this spurious provision was
added to the Chinese text only, and not to the
French, which was made the official or authorized
version in all cases of discrepancy between the

160 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

two. The forgery was discovered at once, was
of no value, as the French text of the treaty alone
was authoritative, and was never taken advan-
tage of, directly or indirectly, by either the Am-
erican, British, or French governments. The
French Minister at Peking officially notified the
Chinese authorities that his government recog-
nized the spurious character of this clause, and
would claim no rights under it.

In point of fact, the interpolation was an act
of useless and unnecessary dishonesty, even under
the plea that the end justifies the means. This
can be readily shown. In A.D. 1724, the Roman
Catholic missionaries, who had built up a large
and influential following in China, were expelled
from the country, being charged with seeking to
interfere with affairs of state, and with disobedi-
ence of the commands of the Emperor. The
property of the Church, amounting to many mil-
lions of dollars in value, was either confiscated
by the government or taken possession of, with-
out legal process, by individuals. In a French
treaty with China, made some twelve years prior
to that of Tientsin mentioned above, it had been
agreed by the Chinese Government that all such
property, upon proper identification and proof of
ownership, should be restored " to the congrega-
tions of Chinese Christians " to whom it had be-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 161

longed. Under this stipulation, property of im-
mense value in the aggregate was restored to the
Roman Catholic Church in China, and bishops
and priests were placed in possession of it. In
this way were Catholic missionaries reintroduced
to the interior of China. If there was anything
irregular or unexpected by the Chinese in the
issue of this transaction, which must be doubted,
it lies in the restoration of the property to the
hands of foreign priests and bishops, ins'ead of
" to the congregations of Chinese Christians " as
provided for in the treaty. The " favored nation
clause," found in all treaties with China, opened
the way for Protestant missionaries to follow the
Catholic. The notorious interpolated clause in
the French treaty of 1858 has played no part
whatever in the establishment of missionaries in
interior districts.

Whether the right might now be claimed by
prescription in favor of missionary residence in
the interior, is a question which, so far as the
writer is aware, has never been raised by the
United States. It is not the policy of our gov-
ernment to exact special rights or favors for any
particular class or calling. It protects and safe-
guards the interests of all alike who pursue hon-
est undertakings, upon the single basis of citizen-
ship. And there are manifest reasons why the

162 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

government should make no exception to this
policy in favor of missionaries in China. The
suspicion that they were in reality secret political
agents would solidify into positive conviction.
They would then be the objects of special jeal-
ousy and distrust by officials and people alike.
From the standpoint of missionary success itself,
any discrimination in favor of that calling is most
seriously to be deprecated. Special favors or
privileges granted by the Chinese Government
may materially facilitate the work of the preacher
of Christianity, and add to his success. But
special favors shown him by his own govern-
ment are inevitably and invariably harmful.

It has always been a serious question whether
the " article of toleration " found in the earlier
treaties with China did not represent an act of un-
wisdom, as singling out the missionary from his
fellow-foreigners, and apparently according spe-
cial rights to him, which might have been equally
well secured in the general article dealing with
the rights, privileges, and immunities accorded
to his countrymen. Thus, while receiving less
particular attention, he would be granted no less
measure of protection. This question arose in
the negotiation of the treaty between the United
States and Corea — the first treaty made by that
kingdom with any Western nation — with which

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 163

the writer had something to do. That distin-
guished Chinese statesman, Li Hung Chang,
acted as friendly adviser to both parties in the
negotiation. And it was due largely to his ad-
vice that no special article referring to mission-
aries was embodied in the treaty, their rights
being effectually safeguarded in the manner
above indicated. The records of missionary
work in Corea furnish no argument against the
wisdom of this action.

Apparently there has been no occasion for any
foreign government to argue the question of the
right of missionaries to reside and prosecute their
work at interior points. That issue has not been
raised by China, at least in recent years. Upon
the other hand, nothing appears to have been
formally conceded. But a wiser course than
either official protest or concession has been fol-
lowed by the Chinese Government. Recognizing
the philanthropic motive and labors of the mis-
sionaries, it has allowed them to establish them-
selves wherever they might be able to do so with
the tacit consent of the people of the locality.
No fault can be found with this policy by the
most ardent advocate of missions. It is at once
wise, conservative, and tolerant. The mission-
aries are forced upon no one, they reach the fields
most ready to receive them, the suspicion that

164 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

they are secret political agents finds nothing sub-
stantial upon which to feed, and they are granted
all that they can wisely expect, a fair opportunity
to do their work.

While the freedom of interior residence is
granted to missionaries as a privilege rather than
a right, the Chinese Government recognizes the
fact that, having conceded such privilege, it is
answerable for their protection from violence or
molestation of any sort. It is, perhaps, some-
times slow to make peremptory demands upon
local authorities for redress in these " missionary
cases," as they are called, upon the same theory
that leads a railway corporation to exempt itself
from liability for injuries to a person who ac-
cepts a free pass. These cases are peculiarly
vexatious and difficult of adjustment. They show
a hostile public sentiment, aroused, not infre-
quently, by indiscreet acts of the missionaries
themselves, who also sometimes expect more in
the way of satisfaction than it would be either
just or politic to exact. The Imperial Govern-
ment is inclined to regard the matter as some
local quarrel, which skould be smoothed over and
patched up upon the spot. It probably is also
inclined to regard the outbreak of violence as a
proof that the missionaries suffering from it have
exceeded the privilege conceded to them by estab-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 165

lishing themselves where they were not wanted,
though no such idea may be expressed. In spite
of all the complications and difficulties, a reason-
able measure of reparation is almost invariably
secured, either from the local authorities or at
Peking.

If a balance were struck between the repara-
tion granted by China for all acts of violence
done by its people upon foreigners of all classes,
and reparation granted by so-called Christian
powers for all acts of violence against Chinese
abroad or in China, that balance would not
be largely against China. Our government has
again and again secured pecuniary compensa-
tion from the Chinese Government for injuries
done by mobs to the persons and property of
American citizens. It has, properly, refused in
nearly all such cases to treat with local officials,
holding the central authority at Peking account-
able. That authority has conceded the responsi-
bility and satisfied our demands. When, in turn,
the Chinese Minister at Washington has pre-
sented claims to our government for the lives and
property of Chinese subjects destroyed by mob
violence at various points in this country, the
Secretary of State — coerced by the law, it is true
— has referred him to a jury in the very county
and town in which the wrong was done, chosen

166 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

from among the very men who were guilty of the
act. Justice failing there, as was to be expected,
and the Chinese Minister becoming importunate,
after years of delay, Congress has appropriated
money to pay these claims " as an act of charity
and commiseration for the sufferers," and not as
justice. And in more than one instance, when
the President, through the Secretary of State,
has called upon the governor of a State to grant
protection or reparation to Chinese, he has been
advised, by way of reply, not more polite or
diplomatic than respectful, to mind his own
business !

In many years of diplomatic service in China,
in the course of which the writer had occasion to
adjust a considerable number of so-called " mis-
sionary cases," and to discuss questions touching
the presence of missionaries and their work in
China, with all grades of officials in all parts of
the empire, from the prince regent to a police
magistrate, no single complaint of Protestant
missionaries as a class, was brought to his knowl-
edge. Censure of individual members of the
body for indiscreet conduct or disregard of the
customs and prejudices of the people were infre-
quently heard, but no complaint against them en
masse, nor objection to their presence in the coun-
try. In January, 1875, the Chinese Cabinet laid

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 167

before the diplomatic body at Peking a volumi-
nous document containing, in substance, two
grievances. The principal one was the opium
traffic. The other embodied complaints against
Roman Catholic missionaries. They were
charged with interference with local officials in
the discharge of their duties, when a convert was
accused of crime, and violation of some of the
important sumptuary laws of the empire. Thus,
it was asserted that some of the priests and bish-
ops adopted the official costume, and even wore
garments of the imperial yellow, which color
none but the Emperor might use.

Upon the other hand, and aside from the right
of residence in the interior, much assistance and
many important and valuable favors have been
granted to missionaries by all grades of officials
in all parts of the empire. They have given large
sums of money to Christian schools and hospi-
tals, have been present and made appreciative ad-
dresses at the laying of the corner-stones, and at
the opening of buildings devoted to educational
and medical work. In more than one instance,
they have established hospitals, placed them un-
der the care of missionaries, and assumed the en-
tire cost of maintenance. And this has been
done with full knowledge that Christianity
would be taught in the hospitals, and that at least

i68 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

as much time would be given to the Bible in the
schools as to the Confucian classics.

While this official assistance naturally has been
directed to the educational and medical work,
many instances might be given of the cordial ap-
preciation and regard for missionaries as a body,
and for all branches of their calling. One Chi-
nese viceroy requested that United States pass-
ports issued to missionaries might specify their
occupation, in order that special protection and
facilities might be granted them. This could not
be done, as a wise regulation forbids any such dis-
crimination. Upon one occasion of trouble be-
tween China and France, the authorities of a prov-
ince asked all American missionaries to display
the United States flag upon their premises, as an
easy method of identification, and an aid to the
officials in securing them from harm. In the ad-
justment of " missionary cases," while the local
authorities have sometimes been reluctant and
dilatory, in many others they have been not
merely just, but generous and liberal, restoring
even more than had been destroyed, and, by
their words and actions, assuring quietness and
popular favor to the missionaries for years to
come.

It would be strange indeed if the government
or people of China should pursue a bigoted and

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 169

intolerant policy in matters of religion. For the
Chinese are not given to the reversal of prece-
dents. And the records of at least two thousand
years of their history show an almost uniform
course of toleration, and, at times, even of special
favor, toward all forms of religious belief, re-
gardless of their source. The few exceptions to
this policy, and the accompanying persecutions,
have invariably grown out of the charge, often
too well founded, of disloyalty to the empire and
interference with affairs of state. In the two
notable instances, to be mentioned shortly, the
Chinese Emperor sought to crush, not religious
belief, but political intrigue. And this accords
exactly with the statement already made that any
opposition to missionaries in modern times is due
to the suspicion that they are political agents, and
not at all to their religious teaching.

Zoroastrianism — the faith of the Parsees in
India to-day — existed in China centuries before
the Christian era. One emperor of the famous
Han dynasty elevated Confucianism to a cult.
His successor, moved, as some say, by a thrice-re-
peated dream, or, as others claim, by a declaration
of Confucius, that a sage would be found in the
West, sent a special embassy in search of the new
light. This deputation wandered into India and
returned with Buddhism, The new belief was

170 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

welcomed, and to-day numbers its adherents
among the Chinese by the hundreds of millions.
Mohammedans came into China from Persia
nearly two thousand years ago. There are many
millions of them through all Northern and West-
ern China, following their religion and living
in peace. There are twenty-four Mohammedan
mosques in Peking alone. And their places of
worship are found in every large city throughout
one-half of the empire. A Mohammedan rebel-
lion sprung up in Western China in 1862, which
continued a number of years, and developed into
an iconoclastic crusade against Buddhism.
Eventually suppressed, the leaders were treated
with great moderation, being only required to
live in peace with followers of other beliefs, and
to post a prayer for the Emperor of China upon
the wall in each mosque.

The Nestorian form of Christianity was intro-
duced into China as early as A.D. 505. The first
knowledge of silk and the silkworm was carried
thence to Constantinople by monks of this order
in A.D. 552. The Emperor, Tai Tsung, received
the preachers of this faith with respect, ordered
a temple for their use to be erected at his capital,
and examined their religious books. The Nes-
torian faith spread throughout China, flourished
for centuries, had emperors among its adherents,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 171

and the highest officials in the land among its
membership, and only became extinct about A.D.
1400. The famous Nestorian Tablet, erected
during the reign and by the orders of the Em-
peror Chien Chung of the Tang dynasty in the
year 781, is still in existence. It is a large slab
of slate erected upon the back of a tortoise, and
having a lengthy and thoroughly Oriental docu-
ment cut upon the face. The burden of the in-
scription is praise of the Christian faith and of
the several emperors of the then reigning dy-
nasty. Embodied in it is a decree issued by the
Emperor Tai Tsung in 639, which concludes as
follows: "As it (the Nestorian belief) is right,
let it be promulgated throughout the empire. Let
the appropriate Board build a Judean church in
the Righteous and Holy street of the capital, and
appoint thereto twenty-one priests."

In 1269 A.D., the Venetian traveller and mer-
chant, Marco Polo, was sent from Peking by the
Emperor to Rome as an envoy to the Pope, re-
questing that missionaries might be sent to China
to instruct the people in the true faith. Roman
Catholic priests were sent in response to this re-
quest. Little is known of their numbers, work,
or success beyond the fact that one of them, John
de Monte Corvino by name, labored in the capi-
tal for eleven years, during which time he bap-

172 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

tized nearly 6000 persons. They appear to have
made no permanent impression upon the Chinese.

The second period of Roman Catholic missions
in China began in 1581 and ended in 1736. At
first the work of the priests was opposed and for-
bidden by the authorities, and they were ordered
to leave the country. But they won their way
to official favor and patronage, and eventually
some of their number occupied positions of au-
thority and importance in the state. But quar-
rels among themselves, appeals to Rome and con-
tradictory orders received therefrom, appeals to
the Emperor and political intriguery worked
their ruin. The end came with an effort to set
the authority of the Pope above the decrees of the
Emperor. The foreign priests were commanded
to leave China, and more than a half million con-
verts were required to abjure the Catholic faith.

Other sects have established themselves within
the empire and grown and flourished there for
centuries without molestation from either the
people or the authorities. Taoism, imported
from India long before the Christian era, still
exists, and numbers its votaries by millions. And
in the very centre of the Chinese Empire is to be
found a single village of Jews, who made their
way thither at the time of the dispersion of the
tribes. Through all the centuries they have pre-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 173

served their ancient customs and ritual, holding
only business relations with their Chinese neigh-
bors, and have been neither disturbed nor mo-
lested.

This rapid sketch of the many forms of re-
ligious belief imported into China since the very
beginning of authentic history shows a tradi-
tional and consistent policy of toleration upon the
part of the government. It has invited foreign
faiths into the empire. It objects to political
propagandism, but not to religious teaching.

When the reader recalls to mind the fact that,
prior to the year of Our Lord 1868, no English-
man might vote or hold office in his native land,
or enter as a student at either of the great uni-
versities of Oxford or Cambridge, unless he
first subscribed his assent to the thirty-nine arti-
cles of the Episcopal Creed; that, to this day,
Protestant missionaries are sternly prohibited
from pursuing their calling in any part of the
Russian Empire, and are hindered and hedged in
by all sorts of obstructive regulations in every
Roman Catholic country — with such facts in
view, the fair-minded reader must at least admit
that China has not been behind the age in the
matter of religious toleration.

In the face of all criticism, friendly and hostile,
and after making full and ample discount for in-

i74 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

efficiency, unfitness, and indiscretion, each in in-
dividual cases, it still must be insisted that mis-
sionaries constitute the most important force
working for progress, development, and conser-
vation to be found in China. Their sincerity of
purpose and devotion cannot be questioned by in-
telligent men. In spite of any and all assertions
to the contrary, they are not, as a class, prone to
attack any of the cherished institutions of the peo-
ple. They prefer rather to teach and explain the
beauties of the Christian faith and exhort to ac-
ceptance of it. They are not, upon the other
hand, inclined to compromise with any form of
heathenism, and can speak in plain but kindly
language when the occasion appears to them to
require such a course. True, they do not all pos-
sess the wisdom of the serpent added to the harm-
lessness of the dove. Yet, upon the whole, they
exercise great tact, patience, and knowledge of
human nature in their work among the Chinese.
Probably no class of people waste so little time in
tilting at windmills as the missionaries. They
are far too busy, too much in earnest to indulge
in any such waste. And their simple, quiet, de-
voted lives make an impression upon many who
never hear a word of their teaching.

The strong assertion which heads the preced-
ing paragraph would still hold good, if all di-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 175

rectly religious teaching were left out of the es-
timate of their work. How can it be otherwise?
The missionaries represent all that has ever been
done for the education and elevation of the female
half of the entire population of China. Practically
the only schools for modern education have been
established and conducted by them. The benefits
of modern medical and surgical knowledge and
practice reach the Chinese only through mission-
aries. Text-books and educational works of al-
most every class have been translated into the
native tongue, and thus placed within reach of the
people, almost exclusively by missionaries. They
are not merely evangelists of the Christian faith.
They are the exponents of new ideas, a broader
range of knowledge, a higher type of manhood
and womanhood, a veritable new birth and a new
intellectual life. Strike out of the account every
word of purely religious teaching uttered by him,
and the missionary still stands as the chief be-
neficent worker of all that is best in the way of
progress in China. The man who sneers at his
quiet, unassuming life and untiring self-sacri-
ficing labor only slanders his own intelligence and
wastes his breath.

The greatest hindrance to this beneficent work
probably lies in the popular suspicion, so often
mentioned, that a political purpose forms the

ij6 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

original motive for the presence of the missionary
in the empire. If the great powers of Europe
gave the Chinese less occasion to dread their sin-
ister designs upon the integrity and independence
pf China, it is probable that this hindrance would
soon and quietly disappear. Pending that most
desirable change in European policy, only time,
tact, and patience can be relied upon to disabuse
the minds of the ignorant and prove their sus-
picions groundless. The suggestion that mis-
sionaries should cast off all claims of nationality
and place themselves at the mercy of the people
whom they desire to serve, refusing to appeal to
their own governments for protection, is as idle
and valueless as the effort to conceal a foreign
nationality by donning Chinese clothes. The
Chinaman despises no man so much as the man
without a country. He would not believe in any
such absolute expatriation, and would probably
decide that the simple-minded missionary was
even a deeper trickster than others of his class.
Or he would conclude that this homeless indi-
vidual had left his country for his country's good,
had either been banished or was in hiding because
of some criminal offence. Nor is there occasion
for any such drastic remedy. The missionary
has his civil rights not less than any other class
of foreigners in China. There is no occasion

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 177

for him to renounce them. In religion, as well
as in politics or business, the plain, common-sense
way is the best. It is only necessary for him to
exercise prudence and moderation in the appeal
to his own authorities, exhausting all means of
friendly and unofficial adjustment before he
formulates his grievance into a case. Especially
should he be reluctant to seek redress on behalf
of native Christians by way of foreign officials.
Treaties provide for cuch reference, but advan-
tage should never be taken of that fact, except in
the most gross and inhuman cases of persecution.
Patience, tact, and shrewd appeals to the good
nature of local officials will work wonders in
China as elsewhere. And the favorable word
and influence of those in authority over the
Chinese is being more and more freely given to
the foreign missionary. In spite of all assertions
to the contrary, he is making his way, becoming
less the object of suspicion, and hence more
widely influential, which no foreigner in China
so well deserves as he.

CHAPTER VII.

DIPLOMACY IN CHINA.

THERE is evidence that, prior to the Chris-
tian era, a certain amount of commerce existed
between China and the countries of Europe.
It was, however, mainly indirect, the articles
exchanged passing through the hands of the
merchants in several intervening countries.
Direct and permanent commercial intercourse
probably began about A.D. 1300. The Christian
era apparently marks the beginning of commer-
cial and friendly missions between the Emperor
of China and the heads of various Asiatic and
European states. Thus, in A.D. 61 the Emperor
sent an envoy to the West " for teachers and
books of the true religion." He returned with
Buddhist writings and priests. In A.D. 126 a
Chinese general reached the valley of the Caspian
Sea and carried the grape-vine back to China.
In A.D. 1 66 the Roman Emperor, Marcus An-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 179

toninus, sent an embassy by sea to China to
procure the rich silks which that country pro-
duced. The culture of silk was introduced into
Europe from China during the reign of the
Roman Emperor Justinian. Tea plants were
carried from India into China in A.D. 315. Ivory,
apes, peacocks, silks, medicines, and gums were
interchanged by the dangerous sea route, or the
more dangerous land caravan route, during the
earlier Christian centuries. It seems strange to
read to-day that Chinese engineers were em-
ployed upon public works in Persia in A.D. 1275,
and that Chinese physicians and astrologers
healed the sick and foretold fate even before that
date in Tabriz, the Persian capital.

Sporadic diplomatic missions from the nations
of modern Europe began about A.D. 1500 and
continued to the establishment of permanent
relations. The French first appeared in China
in A.D. 1506; the Portuguese followed them in
A.D. 1516; the Spaniards in A.D. 1575; the Dutch
in A.D. 1624; the Russians in A.D. 1689, and the
British in A.D. 1793. With the exception of the
Russian and British embassies, the conduct of
all these messengers of amity, good-will, and
commercial intercourse was such as befitted
pirates rather than peaceably disposed men, and
it went far to justify the Chinese Government

i8o REAL CHINESE QUESTION

in its policy of rigid seclusion from all associa-
tion with Europeans.

Direct and permanent diplomatic intercourse
between China and Western nations dates back
only to A.D. 1834. And conditions more unfor-
tunate for the inception of good relations could
not be conceived. As has been intimated, earlier
French, Dutch, and Portuguese " peace" em-
bassies had harried the southern coasts of China,
killed men, women, and children, plundered
towns and cities, and then sailed peacefully
away. For many yer.rs a considerable traffic
had been carried on at Canton between Chinese
merchants at that place and the British East
India Company. It was under official regula-
tion. Six prominent Chinese, known as the
" Hong Merchants," were given a monopoly of
the trade, and were held accountable, under
heavy bonds, for the proper conduct of it. The
British East India Company had a resident
agent at Canton who protected their interests.
He held no official rank or title, was recognized
by the Chinese authorities as merely a taipan,
or managing clerk of a mercantile corporation,
and when he had occasion to address the local
officials he did so by means of a petition, and
was " honored with their commands" in response.
As pointed out in another chapter, this re-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 181

stricted commerce had been vexed, interfered
with, and at intervals interrupted, during more
than sixty years, by the persistent attempts of
the East India Company and foreign merchants
to carry on a contraband traffic in opium.

Such was the situation when, in 1834, the
charter of that company expired, and the British
Government took personal control of affairs in
India. This involved the direct management of
the trade at Canton, and made the British Crown
the purveyor of the forbidden drug to the appe-
tites of the Chinese. It held a monopoly of the
production in India, and became, to all intents
and purposes, the chief smuggler of it into
China. The Right Honorable Lord Napier was
appointed " Chief Superintendent of British
Trade in China," two gentlemen were associated
with him in the commission, and a long list of
secretaries, interpreters, surgeons, and a chap-
lain made up his suite. When this formidable
embassy arrived near Canton, the Chinese cus-
toms promptly reported to the provincial au-
thorities that " three foreign devils" had landed.
Thereupon word was sent to Lord Napier,
through the " Hong Merchants," that he must
remain where he was until permission was
granted him to proceed to Canton.

The lengthy correspondence which followed

1 82 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

was insulting to the British Government, and
exasperating to Lord Napier. All communica-
tions were sent to him through the " Hong
Merchants;" he was not mentioned as an official
of distinguished rank, but as " the barbarian
eye." He was called upon to petition the gov-
ernor, an officer lower than himself, for permis-
sion to enter upon the duties of his position.
He was required to send his petition through
the " Hong Merchants," and warned that if he
" threw in" letters or petitions in any other way,
they would not be read. An extract from a
report made by the governor at Canton to the
Emperor will best show the tone of the entire
correspondence and the exquisite bombast of
Chinese state papers of that period. " But con-
sidering that the said nation's king has hitherto
been in the highest degree reverently obedient,
he cannot in sending Lord Napier at this time
have desired him thus obstinately to resist. The
some hundreds of thousands of commercial
duties, yearly coming from the said country, con-
cern not the Celestial Empire to the extent of
a hair or a feather's down. But the tea, the
rhubarb, the raw silk of the Inner Land ( China)
are the sources by which the said nation's people
live and maintain life. For the fault of one man,
Lord Napier, must the livelihood of the whole

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 183

nation be precipitately cut off? ... I hear
that the said eye (Lord Napier) is a man of
very solid and expansive mind and placid speech.
If he consider, he can himself doubtless distin-
guish right and wrong. . . . Hereafter, when
the said nation's king hears respecting these
repeated orders (from the governor to Lord
Napier) and official replies, he will know that the
whole wrong lies on the barbarian eye, and that
it is in nowise owing to any lack on the part of
the Celestial Empire of extreme consideration
for the virtue of reverential obedience exercised
by the said nation's king."

It is necessary to explain that the Chinese
authorities had no idea of the intention of Great
Britain to send any officer of rank to transact
business with them. They had been warned that
the British East India Company would withdraw
its agent, and that the government would take
direct control of affairs. They had themselves
thereupon suggested that the government
should send out an agent to look after its interests.
They never imagined that an official would be
sent out for such a purpose. And, in the honesty
of utter ignorance, they supposed the British
Government to be simply another, and possibly
larger, trading company. Hence they expected
another taipan, or managing clerk. Thus, in one

1 84 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

of his orders, through the " Hong Merchants,"
to Lord Napier, the governor of Canton said :
" The petty affairs of commerce are to be di-
rected by the merchants themselves, the officers
have nothing to hear upon the subject." At
another point in the correspondence he sharply
criticised Lord Napier for presumption, in mak-
ing use of the same general phraseology in
speaking of Great Britain, that he used in the
mention of the Chinese Empire.

At this time the entire mass of the nation,
from the Emperor at Peking to the meanest
peasant, was in the most profound ignorance
of the Western world. They knew no more of
the great powers of America and Europe than
we know to-day of any social or political divi-
sions upon the planet Mars. Merchants were
at the bottom of their social scale. And the
rulers of China held in most profound contempt
any and all men whose sole business in life was
to make money.

For many centuries China had dominated
a large part of Asia. She knew the petty states
and less civilized tribes by which she was sur-
rounded, and exercised kindly forbearance and
moral power over them. She was at the head
of an immense patriarchal system. She knew
of what is now Asiatic Russia, for the rulers

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 185

of those regions had made prostration and paid
tribute to the Emperor. She knew that im-
mense hordes of pirates, banditti, and savages
inhabited unknown countries bordering some-
where upon the ocean to the south and west,
for the coast provinces had suffered from their
depredations. But that great and independ-
ent nations, possessing highly organized sys-
tems of government and a civilization higher
and more aggressive than hers could exist any-
where upon the face of the earth, was far beyond
the wildest dreams of the Chinese. And they
have not yet thoroughly learned that lesson or,
rather, conceded that fact. So recently as 1864,
the Chinese Government declined to negotiate
a treaty with the kingdom of Prussia, because
it had never heard of any such country. Upon
the kindly interference of the British Minister at
Peking, this decision was reversed, for the naive
reason that the Germans were a respectable
people, whose king was distantly related to the
queen of Great Britain.

Lord Napier was instructed, among his other
duties, to discover the best means for opening
the way to direct communication with the im-
perial government at Peking. His numerous
successors were charged with the same duty.
The envoys from the United States and from

186 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

France, who reached China, respectively, in
1844 and 1845, had similar instructions. The
American Minister, Hon. Caleb Cushing, was
made the bearer of a letter from the President
to the Emperor of China, and was directed to
proceed to Peking and deliver the letter in
person. This letter is almost as great a curiosity
in state papers as the Chinese correspondence
from which quotations have been made. It is,
in no sense, boastful or arrogant. It is, in sub-
stance, plain, frank, and business-like. It gives
a bit of the geography of the United States, and
is chiefly peculiar because it is couched through-
out in those monosyllabic words and simple
sentences which are suited to the capacity of
very young children or unclad savages.

If foreign powers were bent upon establishing
direct communication with Peking, the Chinese
Government was more stubbornly determined
against it, and no treaties were negotiated at the
capital prior to 1860. With one exception, no
foreign minister succeeded in reaching that
centre of authority, and he failed to accomplish
the object of his journey. From 1834 to 1860
all international business was transacted at sea-
ports, more or less remote from Peking, and
the legations were to be found established on
board ships of war, either cruising about the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 187

Yellow Sea, or lying at anchor in some harbor.
While the Chinese did not seriously object to
legitimate commerce localized at a few specified
points and carefully regulated, they wished no
official connection with foreign powers, and,
least of all, were they prepared to admit them
to any intercourse which carried with it the idea
of equality. This would destroy the assumptions
and the precedent of centuries. And a theory
sustained by an antiquated precedent is of more
value to the Chinese than any amount of com-
mercial advantage. So, for twenty years foreign
representatives pressed, and the imperial authori-
ties fought, the right of diplomatic residence at
Peking. The question was much complicated
with other matters. And there is grave reason
to suspect that, had Great Britain in these years
secured the legalization of the opium traffic, an
excuse would have been found for withdrawing
the demand, much as, in the early months of
1873, an excuse was invented for instructing the
British Minister at Peking to withdraw his de-
mand for audience, that universally recognized
right of all envoys at every civilized capital.

In 1858, a treaty was concluded at Tientsin
between Lord Elgin, the British Commissioner,
and the Chinese, and a promise given by the
latter that ratifications should be exchanged

1 88 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

at Peking the year following. But when Sir
Frederic Bruce, the new minister, attempted to
proceed to the capital in accordance with this
promise, the British fleet was fired upon from
the forts at the mouth of the Peiho. A battle
followed, which ended in the repulse of the
British. In 1860, a combined force of English
and French troops attacked and destroyed the
Taku forts, captured Tientsin, marched to
Peking, where in October of that year the
treaty of 1858 was ratified, and the right of
foreign representatives to reside at the capital,
and to conduct international business with the
Chinese Government upon terms of equality was
formally acknowledged. And thus the natural
channel of communication between China and
the governments of America and Europe was
finally and permanently opened.

It must not be assumed that this inevitable
solution was willingly accepted by the Chinese,
or that they modified, in any degree, their objec-
tions. They simply yielded to force, and sub-
mitted to what they regarded as a necessary evil.
From their point of view, the whole business
was an international impertinence. They had
a natural and inalienable right to choose their1
associates, acquaintances, and friends, and when
they had politely intimated to the "red-haired

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 189

men of the West" that such choice did not
include them, the question should have been
settled. No arguments and no train of reasoning
could carry them from that position. It is an
utter mistake to suppose that the benefits to be
derived from commerce have any weight in the
Chinese mind in favor of diplomatic intercourse.
They never associate embassies with that sort
of business.

The Chinese are natural and shrewd mer-
chants, and the authorities are quite willing
that they should traffic, but, they say, what has
that to do with friendship? So long as they
pay their taxes and do not deal in contraband
wares " the petty affairs of commerce are to
be directed by the merchants themselves, the
officers have nothing to hear upon the subject."
The writer has heard many long and labored
arguments addressed by well-meaning foreign-
ers to officials of all ranks in the Chinese Empire,
upon the inestimable benefits to be derived from
increased facilities for, and hence increased de-
velopment of, the foreign trade. And they have
all been wasted breath, as the bored and wearied
faces of the listeners proved only too plainly.
They cared nothing whatever for such benefits.
And they wondered more and more why men of
prominence, ability, and refinement should de-

190 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

vote their lives and wander all over the face of
the earth in pursuit of money. That govern-
ments should concentrate all their energies upon
such a purpose, spending millions of lives and
money upon it, was quite beyond their compre-
hension, and tended in nowise to increase their
respect. The remark, already quoted, of the
governor of Canton to the Emperor, correctly
expresses what was the opinion of the govern-
ment of China at that time. And that opinion
has remained unchanged to the present day.
" The some hundreds of thousands of commer-
cial duties yearly coming from the said country
concern not the Celestial Empire the extent of
a hair or a feather's down."

The forced concession of the right of diplo-
matic residence at the Chinese Court, and of the
conduct of all international business upon a basis
of equality, struck a deadly blow at one of the
assumptions and precedents dearest to the
nation. It practically denied the universal su-
premacy of the Emperor. In their system of
paternalism as a form of government, he is the
sole son of Heaven on earth, and hence the
natural and supreme ruler of all men. None,
however exalted, may approach his presence
except upon hands and knees, none address him
except in faltering and timid response to a ques-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 191

tion. No possible objection could be raised to
his being seen by foreigners. They had wor-
shipped in his presence from time immemorial,
and he had gazed benignantly upon them. But if
the representatives of other rulers were to walk
unconcerned into his presence, stand before him,
and address him as man to man, then the idea
dearest to the Chinese mind would be destroyed,
and the entire fabric of human government
would totter and fall. All this was strikingly
illustrated in the discussions upon the audience
question in 1873. The right of the foreign
representatives to audience with the young Em-
peror was promptly conceded. The question of
ceremonial — that is, the question whether they
should or should not present themselves before
him upon their hands and knees — developed a
heated controversy which continued for months.
The point was only yielded when the Chinese
authorities were informed by the United States
Minister that audience under such a degrading
condition would not be accepted, and that, unless
it were promptly conceded under the forms
usually followed at Western courts, all relations
between his government and China would be
broken off.

The establishment of legations at Peking
threw a multitude of new, intricate, and perplex-

192 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

ing questions upon the Imperial Government.
There were practically no precedents which
might serve as guides. No one at the capital
knew anything about foreigners and foreign
relations. In the immense official class perma-
nently established on duty there, probably there
were less than a score who had ever looked in
the face of a native of America or Europe.
Nothing was known about international law.
There were no text-books upon the subject, for
China had had no international relations, and
the very term, at least in its Western meaning,
did not exist in the language. Naturally, there
was no board or department of the government
to which the conduct of diplomatic business
could be entrusted. An enormous mass of
affairs, involving the most important, critical,
and delicate relations, were suddenly thrown
upon the Peking authorities, and they were un-
versed with and unprepared to handle them.

Under these unpromising conditions a new
office was created and called the Tsung li Yamen,
or Superintendency of Foreign Affairs. Prince
Kung, a brother of the Emperor, was placed at
its head, and a number of the influential mem-
bers of the government were associated with
him. Each of these gentlemen had other official
duties, held by him to be of more importance

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 193

and more desirable. Thus constituted, this
body has continued to manage the diplomatic
affairs of China down to the present time. It
is a cumbersome, unwieldy, and unsatisfactory
arrangement. Appointment to it is not sought
by powerful officials, and to be gazetted to the
Tsung li Yamen is regarded as almost akin to
censure. It has also happened more than once
that an official who had made himself conspicu-
ous by the utterance of extreme anti-foreign
sentiments was ordered by the Emperor to a seat
upon this board. This was done, not in order
to pack the office with members who were hostile
to foreigners, but to give such gentlemen a
practical lesson in the difficulties which attended
the management of international questions.

The result, however, was none the less very un-
fortunate. Men who had never in their lives
looked upon a map of the world, did not know the
names of the leading powers of the earth, and
could not tell whether France was situated in
the north of England or in Cuba, entered the
Foreign Office from time to time with the stern
and lofty determination to manage the foreigner.
The result was generally a salutary lesson to the
Chinese official, but, in the meantime, business
was seriously obstructed. In this way all the
varying shades of political opinion were repre-

i94 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

sented in the body. As no despatch or other
communication could be made to any foreign
minister until it had been approved and initialed
by each of the eight or ten members of the
Foreign Office, it must be evident that the
danger of any unseemly haste in the conduct of
affairs was avoided.

And yet the Tsung li Yamen has not deserved
all the criticism, abuse, and ridicule which has
been heaped upon it. It is difficult to see what
other or more satisfactory scheme for the con-
duct of foreign affairs could have been adopted.
The practice of making one individual the re-
sponsible head of a great department of state
has never been followed in China. Had it been
adopted in this case, there was probably no man
in the empire sufficiently bold to undertake the
duties of the office. If one had been found, he
could not have retained his position for a single
week. For whoever occupied that post stood
constantly between two terrible fires. Questions
of which he knew little or nothing must be
studied and satisfactorily adjusted. He must
meet the demands, sometimes unjust, and often
pressed peremptorily, of the foreign ministers.
If he yielded, then he must face the displeasure
of the Emperor. If he resisted, and trouble came
in consequence, then again he was liable to

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 195

severe censure from his own master. For, from
the Chinese standpoint, it was his duty to resist
foreign demands, and at the same time ward off
any untoward results of his resistance. He must
manage the foreigner by finesse, adroitness, and
diplomacy, keeping him in good-nature, and at
the same time yielding little or nothing to his
demands. The position has only to be stated
to demonstrate its impossibilities for any one
person, however great his influence. Only by
a division of responsibility among a number of
the more influential of the high officials of the
Imperial Government could foreign affairs be
safely managed. Censure and criticism when
so considerably divided were still dangerous.
And they came from both sides. If the ministers
of the Foreign Office have been characterized
by foreigners as evasive, dilatory, obstructive,
and impracticable, they have been denounced by
their own people in far more extreme and threat-
ening terms. Not an official has been connected
with the Tsung li Yamen who escaped without
some loss of influence and prestige. Even Prince
Kung, son of one emperor, brother of another,
and uncle of two succeeding, and at one time
regent of the empire, was commonly spoken of
as " Kuei tz liu," or " Devil Number Six," be-
cause he was at the head of the Foreign Office,

196 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

and hence was connected with the " foreign
devils." " Number Six" was added to the un-
savory epithet because he was the sixth son of
his father. Any person who was in position
to watch the members of the Tsung li Yamen
during the prolonged discussion of the question
of audience in 1873 could not fail to see the
terrible strain under which they were placed. As
one of them remarked subsequently, they were
in hourly danger of the loss of official position
and of life.

There have been many able, broad-minded,
patriotic men in the Chinese Foreign Office.
Few statesmen in Western lands would have
undertaken the duties which they assumed under
command, and fewer could have managed them
with even a moderate measure of success in the
face of such obstacles. And fewer yet would
have consented to remain in office under the
treatment which they were at times called upon
to endure. The inevitable difficulties of the
position were sufficiently great to appall most
men. Some of the peculiar traits of Chinese
character enabled them to surmount these.
They were forced to yield more than once to
gross injustice, unreasonable demands, and acts
of positive aggression, and then to pacify the
wrath of the Emperor and the nation for having

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 197

so yielded. Preposterous demands, which would
never have been whispered by an envoy at
any Western court, were formally presented to
them and forced, under threats, to a favorable
settlement. International law was interpreted
in so many different and contradictory ways to
them that their brains fairly reeled under the
strain. They endured all this with courtesy and
polite demeanor.

For, whatever other faults a Chinese gen-
tleman may have, he is always smiling and
courteous, at times exasperatingly so. But in
addition to all these trials, they were at times
called upon to submit, at the hands of for-
eign representatives, to violent and overbear-
ing conduct, contemptuous demeanor, and va-
rious angry demonstrations, such as screaming,
voluble profanity, pounding the table, and a
clenched fist thrust into their faces. This state-
ment may seem impossible to believe, but it is
literally true. And it is scarcely less incredi-
ble that venerable, white-headed gentlemen, mem-
bers of the Imperial Chinese Cabinet, should
have patiently submitted to such outrages upon
decency for years, before they ventured to enter
a protest wTith the prime minister of the govern-
ment which one conspicuous offender repre-
sented.

198 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

It is far from pleasant to place such criticisms
of any foreign representatives at Peking upon
record. But when the air is full of unfriendly
criticisms of all things Chinese, and every travel-
ling book-maker must have his or her fling at
the Chinese Foreign Office, a sense of common
justice requires that at least a portion of the
truth upon the other side of the question should
be laid before the public. It has been essentially
difficult to transact international business at
Peking. It has been at times a severe trial to
the nerves and the patience. But it has been
made plain that the native officials had at least
their full share of these difficulties which they
were forced to endure. They were generally
accessible upon the side of their good-nature.
And the writer found in a somewhat extended
official relation with them that unwearied pa-
tience, unvaried good-nature, and a most ob-
jectionable persistency were generally sufficient
to secure him all the success which he had the
right to expect.

Whatever of truth there may be in the lines

" For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,"

it is certain that he has not a monopoly of these
qualities. And this fact was learned by the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 199

imperial authorities at the outset of diplomatic
intercourse at Peking. Incidental reference is
made in another chapter to a fraudulent clause,
inserted in the French treaty of Tientsin, by
a Roman Catholic missionary who acted as
interpreter, the object of which was to secure
the right of residence in the interior to members
of his calling. In all the earlier treaties with
China, the foreign text was made the authorita-
tive version in any dispute as to meaning. The
fraudulent clause was not inserted in the French
text, but in the Chinese. The author of the
forgery was probably in doubt what action the
French Minister might take if he discovered the
addition, which he could not do if it was placed
only in the Chinese text. And he counted upon
the frightened and cowed condition of the Chi-
nese authorities as the result of recent defeat in
battle to prevent them from raising any question
about it. The trickery was unnecessary and
harmless of results, as the French Minister
promptly notified the Tsung li Yamen that no
advantage would be taken of the interpolated
clause. A similar fraud, earlier in date, but
brought to light at about the same time, was pro-
ductive of much embarrassment to the Chinese
Government, and had more serious results.
In the days when Portugal occupied a notice-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION

able place upon the map of the world, a peace mis-
sion from that country made a piratical descent
upon the coast of China, near the mouth of the
river below Canton, and established a fortified
settlement upon the peninsula of Macao. After
repeated conflicts between Chinese troops and
the intruders, a barrier wall was erected to con-
fine them to a narrow area, and ultimately a
treaty was made by the terms of which they were
permitted to remain there upon payment of an
annual ground rent to the Chinese Government,
the latter retaining sovereignty over the terri-
tory. This treaty was written in French, Portu-
guese, and Chinese, the first-named text being
the authoritative version. A Roman Catholic
missionary was the interpreter, and to him fell
the duty of drafting the several texts and of
certifying to their identity in substance, which
he did.

Many years passed before the government
of Portugal proposed an exchange of the ratifi-
cations of this treaty. In the meantime the
infamous coolie traffic had become established
at Macao. Chinese laborers were kidnapped
from the mainland, imprisoned in barracoons at
Macao, and sent thence by shiploads to labor
in the sugar plantations and mines of Cuba and
Peru. The Portuguese Government derived

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 201

large revenues from this form of slavery, and the
Chinese authorities protested in vain against it.
Eventually the exchange of ratifications of the
treaty was sought by Portugal. In the mean-
time, however, the attention of the authorities
at Peking had been called to a serious and
manifestly intentional discrepancy between the
Chinese and foreign texts. In the former, the
sovereignty of China over Macao was plainly
recognized, and the government was pledged to
appoint proper officers to govern its people and
maintain order there. In the foreign texts,
China as plainly relinquished all sovereignty
over the peninsula, and was to be permitted
by Portugal to appoint a consular officer to
reside there. The exchange of ratifications was
refused for many years until, wearied by the
hopeless effort to have wrong made right save
at the cost of war, the exchange was made and
Macao was ceded to Portugal. Other instances,
not perhaps of fraud in the construction of
treaties, but of breach of faith on the part of
foreign powers in carrying into effect their
provisions, might be given.

It must not be imagined that the Chinese
Government has been above criticism in its line
of conduct under these international compacts.
Upon the contrary, there have been constant

202 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

and grave causes of complaint. It is not in the
Chinese disposition to openly repudiate an obli-
gation, and hence this has not been done. But
plain provisions have been wilfully misinter-
preted, and, what is even more vexatious, when
pledges contained in the treaties have been
nominally carried into effect, their value has been
destroyed by indirect and underhanded methods.
On occasion such action has been justified by the
plea that all treaties concluded prior to 1861
were extorted from the Chinese at the point of
the bayonet, and hence, being contracts made
under duress, were not binding. If this argu-
ment were admitted, a large number of treaties
and conventions, now held as of full effect
between civilized nations, would be void and
without force.

The main burden of diplomatic discussion at
Peking is confined to questions affecting com-
merce. Here, again, the Chinese excuse them-
selves for pursuing a recalcitrant line of conduct
upon the ground, not often formally stated, that
all questions of duties and other taxes upon
commerce ought of right to be decided by each
nation for itself; that they concern the inherent
rights of sovereignty; that control of these ques-
tions has been wrongfully wrested from China,
to the extent that she can neither fix the rate

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 203

of impost nor enact necessary commercial regu-
lations without the consent of all the treaty
powers; and that hence they are justified in
insisting upon the narrowest and most strict
interpretation of provisions forced upon them
in violation of their natural rights. All of which
may be logical and conclusive. At the same
time, there can be no doubt that the interference
of foreign powers with these natural rights of
China, to the extent of incorporating a tariff
of duties and commercial regulations in the
treaties, was necessary if any considerable inter-
national traffic were to continue in existence.
Failing such interference, and such treaty stipu-
lations, it would have been speedily strangled by
excessive taxation and obstructive legislation.

The Chinese Government has shown a disposi-
tion to trifle with the serious character of treaties
upon two notable occasions. In 1879, Chung
Hou, a minister of the Tsung li Yamen, was
sent to St. Petersburg to conclude a treaty of
delimitation of certain portions of the western
boundary of the empire. His negotiations with
Russia extended through several months, during
all of which time he was in almost daily com-
munication with the authorities at Peking. Each
article of the treaty, as agreed upon, was sub-
mitted to and approved by the imperial authori-

204 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

ties, and when his labors were concluded, he
asked and received permission to sign the docu-
ment. Having done so, he at once set out upon
his return to Peking. But during the interval
occupied by this journey, a hostile political in-
fluence came into control at the Chinese capital,
and when Chung Hou reached Shanghai, he
was met with an order from the Emperor that
his property be confiscated, he be stripped of his
offices, and beheaded, upon the ground that he
had " exceeded his authority and violated his
instructions." A prompt and energetic remon-
strance from the entire diplomatic body at
Peking, coupled with the assurance that, if China
treated her representatives abroad in such man-
ner, no civilized government would consent to
receive them, and more emphatic warnings from
Russia, saved the unfortunate envoy's life and
property. But he spent the remainder of his
days in vain entreaties to gods and men for
restoration to the favor of the Chinese Emperor.
About a year later, the Foreign Office spent
many weeks in negotiating a treaty with the
Japanese Minister at Peking, and at the last
moment, for no assignable reason, refused to
sign the document.

In a manner certainly not less trifling and
inconsistent, the French Government in 1882

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 205

formally thanked its minister at Peking for
negotiating a treaty with China, settling certain
matters in Tonquin; only a few months later
repudiated the treaty, and censured and dis-
missed from his post the minister because he
had signed it; demanded an indemnity from
China for the expenses of one of the numerous
French land-stealing expeditions; refused arbi-
tration, and opened war upon the Chinese be-
cause payment was refused. Great Britain
accepted such provisions of the Chefoo Conven-
tion of 1877 as made to her advantage, and
repudiated the remainder. It should be no great
matter of surprise if, under such circumstances,
China finds this modern business of foreign
relations and friendly intercourse (so called) a
most unsatisfactory mess of perplexities and
vexations, a continued dicker in which she is
generally the loser, and longs for the good old
days when the men of the West remained in the
West and left her to herself.

Diplomacy in China is at once tiresome and
exciting. It necessitates familiarity with a great
range and variety of subjects, many of which
are never heard of elsewhere. The representative
at Peking is forced to be an educator in a double
sense. He must inform the Chinese of Western
matters with which they are unfamiliar. And he

206 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

is constantly obliged to explain to his own
government Oriental peculiarities, customs, and
laws, which of necessity influence his own ac-
tion, since, without such explanation, his conduct
of public affairs would appear peculiar and at
times deserving of censure. Who, outside of
China, or within the empire, for that matter,
has any valuable understanding of her financial
system or her laws of taxation? Who has
reached an exhaustive knowledge of the relations
between the provincial governments and the
central authority? Who can explain her system
of courts and judicial procedure, or can show
how and why it is that a censor is not merely
permitted, but is in duty bound, on occasion, to
criticise the Emperor, that Son of Heaven and
its sole representative upon earth? Yet all these
matters are constantly cropping up to vex and
complicate the labors of a diplomatic representa-
tive at Peking. He must know something about
them to be at all fit for his position. And he
must know a good deal about them, in order to
so conduct his business as to reduce the inevi-
table friction between Eastern and Western
ideas and policies to a minimum.

Unfortunately, it has been far too much the
habit of diplomatists at Peking to ignore and
ride roughshod over any protests and objections

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 207

of the Chinese which were based upon conditions
which they did not understand. Manifestly, the
Chinese Government must carry out in their
entirety its treaty obligations, and local ideas
and laws must give way at any points of conflict.
But there are wise and unwise ways by which to
accomplish this result. And he who pushes
roughly ahead, setting his heavy foot upon the
most sensitive and sacred ideas, traditions, and
prejudices of the Chinese, may be a most ener-
getic man of business, but assuredly is not a
good diplomat. One success, won by such proc-
esses, is more harmful to the government which
he represents than many defeats.

Chinese of all classes are proud and sensitive to
an extreme degree. If one of them, to use their
own expressive idiom, has " lost his face " — that
is, has been humiliated or put to shame — nothing
can be accomplished with him thereafter. Argu-
ments, persuasions, even apologies, are all wasted.
He may be overpowered by force, but he can
never be won. And it is simply astonishing that
so little regard has been paid to the common
weaknesses and peculiarities of human nature in
dealing with the Chinese, especially by diplomat-
ists, whose business it is, by quiet and persuasive
means, to win victories for their own govern-
ments, and, at the same time, to keep the

ao8 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

vanquished good-natured and satisfied. The
lectures delivered by official representatives of
foreign powers to Chinese statesmen, upon the
ignorance and stupidity of the latter and the
corruption and general worthlessness of their
government, would fill many volumes. And a
recital of the personal impertinences, slights, and
examples of bad taste would fill many more. The
United States once removed one of its ministers
abroad from office because he had publicly ac-
cused an officer of the government to which he
was accredited with having accepted a bribe.
When our representative, in defence of his
conduct, offered to prove the truth of this
accusation, the Secretary of State quietly re-
marked : " But it is no part of your duty to assert
or prove that any member of the government

of is venal or corrupt." Yet something

closely akin to the breach of propriety for which
our minister was removed is of frequent occur-
rence in China, and no notice of it is taken by
the superiors of those who thus offend.

None of the high officials at Peking or else-
where in the empire are familiar with any other
language than their own. Nor is the Chinese
Foreign Office provided with a staff of compe-
tent interpreters. The treaties require that all
business should be transacted in Chinese. Each

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 209

legation is, therefore, required to have its own
linguists, and, as a rule, no communication is
possible between the head of any diplomatic
establishment and the imperial authorities except
through a third person. The writer was once
party to a conversation in which five different
languages were necessarily used to enable two
distinguished gentlemen to exchange ideas.
Interpreters are not always competent, or even
moderately well fitted for their important duties,
and confusion, embarrassment, and serious mis-
understandings are sometimes the result. For-
eign representatives have been known to take
an unfair advantage of these peculiar conditions,
and thus to further complicate a difficult situa-
tion.

At a time when affairs between France and
China were in a critical state, and an acrid
correspondence was in progress between the
French Minister at Peking and the Foreign
Office, a serious error in translation was made
by the interpreter of the former. When the
attention of the minister was called to this error
in a most courteous manner by the Chinese
officials, he retorted that, as fault was found with
his interpreter, he would send them no more
despatches or correspondence in Chinese, but
confine himself to the use of his own language.

210 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

And this he proceeded to do. In almost any
other court in the world, this irascible and un-
reasonable gentleman would have been quietly
left to cool himself, and to seek his senses at his
leisure, and, in the meantime, all correspondence
would have ceased. Or, and what is more prob-
able, his passports would have been sent to him.
But the Chinese ministers were far too anxious
and timid to adopt this appropriate remedy.
The situation was embarrassing and vexatious
in the highest degree. They were in daily receipt
of despatches from the angry Frenchman,
couched, doubtless, in most elegant Parisian, not
one word of which could they read. There was
not in the capital a single Chinese whose knowl-
edge of French could be relied upon, at least in
a correspondence of such importance. Under
these circumstances, they appealed for aid to an
official of another legation, who readily came
to their assistance, and who for months, unsus-
pected by the French Minister, was the inter-
mediary in all correspondence between him and
the Chinese Foreign Office.

It ought to be said in passing that, during
this same crisis in the relations between China
and France, a number of French vessels of war
dropped quietly, one by one, into the harbor of
Foo Chow, as is the custom and right of such

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 211

craft to visit the ports of friendly powers the
world over. They lay there quietly among
vessels of other nationalities for several weeks,
their officers exchanging visits with the local
authorities, as is alcD the custom. Suddenly,
one August afternoon, they opened fire upon
an extensive Chinese arsenal established there,
and upon some Chinese gunboats lying in the
harbor, and continued the bombardment until
arsenal and ships were destroyed, involving the
loss of many lives and property of great value.
No sufficient notice was given. The Chinese
gunboats had not even time to get up their
anchors, after being warned, before they were in
a whirlwind of French shot and shell. War had
not been declared. No state of war existed. At
the very day and hour when this havoc was
being wrought at Foo Chow, diplomatic nego-
tiations were being quietly conducted at Peking,
the French Minister and his suite were living
there in peace and safety, and the Chinese au-
thorities were eagerly seeking a reasonable
adjustment of affairs, offering mediation, arbi-
tration, anything short of abject submission to
the outrageous demands and plundering pro-
clivities of the French.

In view of such and many similar incidents of
greater or less importance, it cannot be a matter

212 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

of surprise to any thoughtful person, that what
we term international law is a great and hopeless
puzzle to the Chinese statesman. He hears it
constantly quoted as of universal acceptance and
final authority. Yet, what with his ignorance
of its provisions, and the manner in which it is
misquoted, misapplied, and distorted out of all
recognizable shape to suit personal ends, his
desire for any further knowledge of it has van-
ished with his respect. In his over-anxiety to
be courteous, he puts himself sometimes in the
wrong. If he fails to give notice of some un-
important event — such, for example, as the clos-
ing for a few hours of certain streets in Peking —
his attention is called to this interference with
the privileges of foreign citizens or subjects. If,
upon the other hand, he gives a polite notice, he
is requested not to trouble the foreign represen-
tatives with petty municipal affairs, which do not
interest or concern them. If he is ever brave
enough to quote a canon of international law
in defence of his own position in any matter, he
is informed that it does not apply. If he objects
to a quotation made against him, he is advised,
in words of polite and condescending patronage,
that he knows nothing whatever upon the sub-
ject. He hears a great deal about " national
honor," connected generally with some indem-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 213

nity demanded of him. Yet, so far as he can
discover, small respect is paid either to the
honor or integrity of the Chinese Empire. He
keeps his hands scrupulously out of all national
or international affairs which do not, from his
point of view, concern his own country. Yet
he is beset with advice, warnings, and threats
about his management of business which is
strictly and solely Chinese. And to him diplo-
macy is very much of a hornet's nest, in which
there are innumerable stings, but no honey.

Much of all this was unavoidable. Foreign
governments, having forced themselves into
relations with China against the will of the
latter, have sought to tutor and bring her into
line with the rest of the civilized world. Had
their motives been purely unselfish, had their
representatives at Peking been missionaries of
modern politics, sociology, and civilization, in-
stead of agents to further the ends of greed for
gain and political domination, as too many of
them have been, the difficulties of the situation
would still have been enormous. Nor is it to
be understood that all diplomats at Peking have
been objectionable to the Chinese, or have given
them cause of complaint. Many have been true
friends, and have been recognized and trusted
as such. They, while maintaining the honor

214 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

and dignity of their own governments and fully
protecting every interest committed to their
care, have still had room for sympathy, patience,
and tact in all their business relations. They
have realized that a foreign representative might
be a devoted friend to the Chinese, and still
perform his official duties. And, as might be
expected, these men, while doing much for
China, have been by far the most valuable and
successful servants to their own governments.
The personal equation counts for more in
Chinese diplomacy than elsewhere. And no-
where else is there to be found such a fascinating
study of men, as well as of international ques-
tions. The Chinese merchant studies his cus-
tomer before he names a price for his wares.
The Chinese statesman thinks that he knows
how to play upon all the various chords which
influence human action. Yet, in many respects
he possesses the simplicity of a child, and there
is a never-failing interest in studying him, and
watching the effect of different influences
brought to bear upon him. With all his secre-
tiveness and reserve, there is a large amount of
transparency about him to the experienced
student. The merits of a given question often
weigh far less with him than the shape and
manner of its presentation and the personality

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 215

of him who has it in charge. Argue through
all the range of mutual and international advan-
tage, treaty right, commercial benefits, or duty,
dignity, and honor, and no effect is produced.
Then drop all argument, and seek the same
result as a personal favor, and it is at once and
graciously conceded.

Diplomacy might almost be defined as the
science and art of managing men. And what
has made it to a large extent a failure in China,
a source of irritation, and a cause of difficulties,
instead of a peaceable means of remedy, has been
a lack of this careful study of men as well as of
measures.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHINESE OPINION OF FOREIGNERS.

A MAN'S home is to him the centre of the uni-
verse. His country is the best in the world,
the state or province in which he lives is the most
desirable part of his country, the city, village, or
country cross-roads where his home is found is
the finest and most enviable in the State, and
even though he lives miles from any neighbor,
still all things desirable revolve around him, and
those who have the misfortune to reside else-
where must be lonely and out of the world. He
may grumble and complain, suffer hardship,
poverty, and distresses of every sort, yet let any
other man, either in criticism or sympathy, speak
disparagingly of that little circle of earth which
centres about him, and his whole soul is up in
arms at once. When absent from home, he is
never weary of describing its virtues. He exag-
gerates some of its desirable qualities, and invents
others which it never possessed. Nothing is

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 217

good enough for him elsewhere, because nothing
looks, sounds, tastes, smells, or feels like home.

This is a universal and beneficent trait of hu-
man nature. Beneficent because it is the tap-
root from which spring many noble virtues.
Public spirit, civic pride, patriotism, and a host
of other manly qualities, are all the outgrowths
of this stock. But it may also develop into pro-
vincialism, narrowness of mind, and smallness of
soul. He who allows his mental horizon to be
bounded by a hundred-acre farm and the village
store and post-office is neither a good patriot, a
desirable citizen, nor a full-sized man. It is, per-
haps, the most difficult of change of all human
characteristics. To transfer the allegiance of a
man from one country to another is, to say the
least, quite as venturesome an experiment as to
transplant a full-grown tree. Those who have
watched with attentive eyes the very slow proc-
esses of assimilation, by which natives of foreign
lands have been transformed into citizens of the
United States, cannot have failed to realize this
fact. Frequently the original stock takes on no
change whatever, and two or three generations
must pass before the transfer of nationality is
completed.

Few men are sufficiently broad-minded or
philosophic to thoroughly recognize the fact that

2i 8 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

this feeling or sentiment of attachment to locality
is universal, is inherent in all peoples and races of
men. Every man everywhere has it, and each
wonders, more or less mildly, why any other man
should feel as he does. The Englishman boasts
that Great Britain is the leading Christian nation
upon the face of the earth, and thinks the French-
man a fool because he refuses his assent to the
assertion. The Russian looks upon both with
scorn for their absurd and ignorant notions.
The citizen of the United States knows better
than any of them. And the Chinaman regards
all men of the West as barbarians who have never
tasted the bliss of a true home in the Celestial
Empire. Part of this general feeling is pure
patriotism, but a large and less worthy ingredient
is conceit. The place where each man lives is the
best place, his associations and surroundings are
the best, what he does, owns, or controls are the
best, all because they are parts of him.

From this as a starting point, it is only neces-
sary to analyze the general Western opinion of
the Chinese, to discover the original Chinese
opinion of foreigners. As imitation is the most
subtle form of flattery, so differences may be
reckoned as discredits on either side, and those
will be accounted the worst traits in each in which
they least resemble the other. The ignorance of

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 219

each regarding the real qualities possessed by the
other will serve to accentuate adverse judgment
at every point. Little of opinion thus founded
is logical or governed by good sense. But when
was popular judgment based upon either reason
or knowledge ? Much of it is whimsical. Much
of it, again, is determined by the habits, customs,
and taste — or what passes for taste — of those
who entertain it. Much of it is predicated upon
conditions which do not exist, and much from a
careless and conceited disposition to condemn
whatever is not easily understood.

To illustrate some of these peculiar qualities of
popular judgment. We regard the Chinese with
contempt because they will not fight, they abhor
us because we do. Neither opinion is justified
by the facts. We are a peace-loving people, and
their history abundantly proves that the Chinese
will fight when the occasion appears to them to
demand such action. Objection has been made
in public meetings to the presence of Chinese in
this land " because they work all the time."
They are naturally industrious and frugal, yet as
fond of ease and pleasure as any race of men.
Shivers of horror have run over the Western
world at the universal practice of female infanti-
cide among the Chinese. But no such practice
exists to any noticeable extent. We ridicule

220 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

their manner of dress, they regard ours as inde-
cent. We do not approve of flat noses and slant
eyes. They consider our noses, eyes, and hair
as deformities. We abhor the cramped foot of
a Chinese woman, and are fully justified in the
feeling. But why should the unnatural waist
lines of a foreign lady of fashion be less objec-
tionable to them? They have not been educated
to regard the wasp an ideal of beauty. If we
dislike to see a female upon the streets wearing
baggy trousers, why should they approve a
lady having bare arms and exposed bosom and
back at a public gathering of both sexes ? Which,
after all, is more offensive to true taste and genu-
ine refinement? And which is the more calcu-
lated to excite immorality ? We live, possibly too
much, in the present and future, they far too ex-
clusively in the past. But their dignity and re-
pose of manner are not wholly bad, nor are our
eager rush and rapid transit, from one source of
excitement to another, wholly good. It is easy
to deliver epigrammatic flings at the Chinese.
But epigrams are seldom just, and hence are dan-
gerous as the basis of any judgment. A quieter
but more accurate mutual knowledge is much to
be desired.

As far back as Chinese opinion of foreigners
can be traced, it is founded upon the narrow

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 221

grounds of national egotism and vanity, inter-
mingled with another element to be mentioned
later. When the first specimens of the men of
the West reached her shores, China was the iso-
lated centre of a world which she knew and ruled.
She was, in every regard, the superior of all races
and tribes of men about her. They deferred to
her authority, accepted her moral and intellectual
superiority, and shaped themselves and their in-
stitutions upon the model which she furnished.
They borrowed her language, literature, knowl-
edge, and civilization, and in these and a va-
riety of other ways, worshipped at the shrine of
her overweening conceit and pride.

The Chinese had heard of various tribes exist-
ing in the fa*r West, and there is reason to believe
that similar rumors of races of men upon the
American continent had reached them. These
were all described as creatures of a very low or-
der of humanity, ill-shaped and grotesque in ap-
pearance, hiding in dens and caves of the earth,
feeding upon roots and herbs, and lacking nearly
every mark which discriminates a man from a
beast. Pictures of them were drawn and circu-
lated throughout the empire, hideous and repul-
sive to a point beyond description. When later
years brought examples of these human mon-
strosities to China, and imagination was corrected

222 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

by sight, their forms and faces still remained
ugly, their dress uncouth, their language a hope-
less jargon, and their manners rude and offensive.
Their mental qualities took on much of the ill-
favor which had been removed from their physi-
cal appearance by personal contact and acquaint-
ance.

The Chinese of those days are represented
by a Roman writer " as singularly frugal, quiet,
and tranquil, unwarlike and averse to the use of
arms." Those who came among them were
greedy for gain, indifferent to the means by which
it was secured, preferring plunder and open vio-
lence to a slow and unexciting traffic. When,
still later, they came in considerable numbers and
of different nationalities, they quarrelled, fought,
and murdered among themselves, or made the
Chinese the objects of joint robbery. There was
nothing in their conduct to indicate any of that
civilization, or regard for the rights of others,
which had been universal in China for centuries.
It is impossible to determine which the natives of
the empire detested the more, the appearance of
these intruders or their conduct. A Chinese
writer describes one body of Europeans who
reached Canton about A.D. 1506, as follows: " At
about this time also, the Hollanders, who in an-
cient times inhabited a wild territory, and had no

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 223

intercourse with China, came to Macao in two or
three large ships. Their clothes and their hair
were red; their bodies tall; they had blue eyes,
sunk deep in their heads. Their feet were one
cubit and two-tenths long; and they frightened
the people by their strange appearance."

It, of course, was not to be expected that these
early wanderers to China, who, in the main, were
pirates and freebooters, should exhibit any of
the higher traits or amenities of civilization. It
may have been unjust upon the part of the Chi-
nese to accept them as representative types of the
nations to which they belonged, and to condemn
all Europeans for the acts of a comparatively few
unprincipled men. But that is the common
course throughout the world — to judge the many
by the few. And before Americans censure the
Chinese in such a matter, it would be wise for
them to consider what is their own practice in a
similar direction. For example, the American
opinion of the hundreds of millions of the Chinese
is determined by the appearance and conduct of
the small number of the race who are found in
this country as laborers. Yet they belong to the
lowest class in the empire, and come exclusively
from a narrow area near Canton. They furnish
no fair example of the Chinese race. The aver-
age American regards China as a nation of laun-

224 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

drymen. But it is doubtful whether there is a
single public laundry in the empire supported by
natives. The Chinese do not wash their linen at
too frequent intervals, and this sanitary operation
is always performed in the privacy of home.

The government and people of China rested
their opinion of all Europeans upon the conduct
of these first specimens of the men of the West
which they had seen, and that opinion has re-
mained, unchanged in substance, to the present
day. It is not strange that they bestowed the
title of barbarians upon them, nor that, when they
dared, they treated them in a manner befitting the
title. The Chinese opinion and rule of conduct
toward foreigners is summed up in an order
which has been thus translated by Premaire:
" The barbarians are beasts, and not to be ruled
on the same principles as subjects of China.
Were any one to attempt to control them by the
great maxims of reason, it would lead to nothing
but confusion. The ancient kings well under-
stood this, and accordingly ruled barbarians by
misrule; therefore to rule barbarians by mis-
rule is the best and true way to govern them." It
is a curious fact that substantially the same rule
of treatment of foreigners was current in Eng-
land, and throughout the continent of Europe, at
about the same time.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 225

The cowardly and obsequious demeanor of
other foreigners, as absurd and degrading as that
of the freebooters was brutal and inhuman,
tended still further to confirm the Chinese in their
opinion that the Western foreigner was a beast
and deserved only beastly treatment. Their only
anxiety was for trade, or, from the Chinese stand-
point, the chance of making money. Granted
this, they were ready to submit to any cere-
monials, however degrading; to accomplish it,
they were willing to sacrifice personal or national
honor, dignity, and self-respect. The Dutch
were peculiarly conspicuous in this direction.
After earlier missions sent to Peking to further
trade, missions the heads of which had prostrated
themselves upon their hands and knees before the
Emperor, before his vacant chair, and before any
official, high or low, who cared to exact this mark
of submission from them, the climax of degrada-
tion was reached in A.D. 1795. It was then de-
cided by the Dutch Government to send a special
embassy to Peking to congratulate the Emperor,
Chien Lung, upon reaching the sixtieth year of his
reign, and, of course, to obtain better facilities
for trade. The members of this embassy made
the long overland journey to the Chinese capital
in midwinter, subjected everywhere en route to
treatment as criminals. They were, while in Pe-

226 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

king, the mountebanks of the court, which
amused itself at their expense, requiring them to
perform " the nine prostrations " before every
person and everything as the whim seized them.
The Dutch Minister and the members of his suite
were required to exhibit their agility upon skates,
for the pleasure of the Emperor and members of
the Imperial Family. As a special mark of favor,
they were presented with a mess of broken vic-
tuals, which not only came from the Emperor's
table, but bore the marks of his teeth. This re-
past was sent to them upon a dirty plate, and, as
a member of the embassy says, " appeared rather
destined to feed a dog than to serve as food for
a human being." They were never permitted to
speak a word about business, and accomplished
nothing whatever beyond confirming the Chinese
idea of the beastly nature of foreigners.

It is a conspicuous fact that, at the first con-
tact of the European races with the aborigines of
the American continent and the islands of the
Pacific Ocean, the latter ascribed supernatural
power to their visitors, and, in some instances,
sought to worship them as gods. Though the
Chinese do not form the aboriginal race of that
portion of the Asiatic continent occupied by
them, they have always manifested a similar feel-
ing, though perhaps in a less degree, toward

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 227

Western foreigners. It is unnecessary to in-
quire into the cause of this peculiar notion. It
exists and has exercised a marked effect upon
their opinions and conduct. Intensely super-
stitious themselves, they have credited the Ameri-
can and European with the possession of powers
over, or allied to, the mysterious influences which
surround them, as they believe, upon every side,
and which they fear and hate. It is not to be
expected that such vague suspicions and ridicu-
lous ideas should have been reduced to any exact
statement or definite belief. They have only ma-
terialized to a point where they can be recognized
as invariably hostile to the Chinese. Indeed, the
Chinese demonology appears to include no
friendly spirits or influences. None are sup-
posed to act beneficently. All are to be placated,
appeased, or thwarted, none are to be sought
after or desired. Hence, if the Western for-
eigner was a beast, he was an uncanny beast; if
he was a barbarian, his energies and powers ex-
tended beyond ordinary human limits, and always
in a direction harmful to others. He was past-
master in all the evil forces of the black art,
magic, hypnotism, and diablery of every kind.

A singular proof of the extent to which this un-
complimentary notion of foreign energy and
power has gained credence in China is found in

228 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

one of the pretensions of the leaders of the so-
called Boxer movement. They claimed to have
stolen the foreigners' secret, and to confer upon
such as joined their organization supernatural
influences superior to those which the men of the
West possess, and which should render the pos-
sessor invulnerable to sword thrust or bullet.
They thus proposed, by the use of the foreigners'
own imaginary weapons, to destroy them or drive
them out of China. Public exhibitions of the
protection afforded by these magic arts were
given, and, by means of some claptrap which
must have been known to the leaders, were ap-
parently successful. The masses of the people
were completely deceived, and were given false
courage and confidence. Probably one-half of
the Boxer following was secured by means of
these assurances.

This idea of a supernatural power, possessed
by foreigners, may not have originated in the
conduct of the early Christian monks and friars
who wandered into China, but is not unlikely to
have been strengthened by their pretensions and
practices. They carried the bones of saints and
martyrs with them, and claimed possession of
the power to work miracles. Hardly less igno-
rant and superstitious than the Chinese, whom
they sought to convert from superstition to re-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 229

ligion, they attributed all things which were be-
yond their comprehension to the powers of evil,
and by charms, relics and crosses, sought to
check the further encroachments of what they
believed to be the forces of hell. Amazed at the
number and wealth of the temples, and dis-
tressed at the power of the idols over the minds
of the people, they appealed, not to a better
knowledge, but to the same order of super-
stitious notions which created the temples and
gave the idols their authority. They thus estab-
lished in the minds of the natives the idea of a
species of rivalry between the forces supposed to
emanate from heathen shrines and gods and
those which constituted the attributes of a for-
eign divinity.

Much was said and done of a character di-
rectly calculated to foster this idea. The Bud-
dhists enlarged their repertoire by the addition
of a Goddess of Mercy in opposition to the
Virgin Mary, and a most horrible and effec-
tive hell. The monks and friars increased the
number of their saints and images, and broad-
ened the scope of their powers. But they car-
ried with them no true education and little gen-
uine enlightenment. This rendered impossible
the permanence of any valuable work which they
might do. And it may be that, in the absence of

23o REAL CHINESE QUESTION

any other visible results of early Christian pros-
elytism in China, this absurd notion of a mys-

Itical power attaching to all foreigners remains as
the sole surviving fruit of their zeal, self-denial
and heroic, though ignorant, labors.

The foregoing sums up what may be termed
the original ideas regarding the people of the
West, as those ideas were current in China.
They were the reverse of complimentary, which
was the more unfortunate, since they were held
by a race immense in numbers and, as things
then were, high in the scale of cultivation and
refinement.

The Chinese policy of seclusion was the neces-
sary and inevitable sequence to such ideas. It
was by no means an arbitrary, unreasonable dic-
tum. There is abundant evidence, some of
which is given elsewhere in this volume, that the
Chinese were naturally receptive of all forms of
knowledge, sent embassies abroad in search of it,
welcomed new theories and practices with their
professors and apostles, and that China was
freely open to theorist, priest, traveller, mer-
chant, and every other respectable wanderer.
China was then not a laggard but a leader in all
the more quiet forms of progress. She tested
and exploded impracticable schemes then, as we
do now. Seven hundred years ago, the Chinese

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 231

Government experimented with an irredeemable
paper currency, and learned then, what some
would-be-wise Western men are still disputing,
that it drove all gold and silver money out of the
country.

The doors of the empire were never closed
against neighbors upon either side. Friendly
and commercial relations with all the Asiatic
nations, races and tribes have existed, with tem-
porary interruptions caused by war, since the be-
ginning of Chinese history. It was not the for-
eigner against whom the empire was shut, but the
Western foreigner. And in taking this line of
policy, China acted as would other nations under
like circumstances. She judged the many whom
she had never seen by the few whom she saw.
She condemned all Western nations, because of
the few unwholesome specimens who came
clamoring and ravaging to her shores. Their
appearance, manners, dress, conduct — every-
thing about them — confirmed Chinese vanity,
arrogance, and every other absurd and exalted
notion of themselves, and excited contempt, fear
and hate of these straggling monstrosities, as
they seemed to native eyes, from the remote
parts of the earth. Hence came Chinese seclu-
sion.

With such a groundwork, little could be ex-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION

pected of the superstructure of modern Chinese
opinion of Western foreigners. Under the most
favorable conditions of intercourse, with all pos-
sible mutual conciliation and forbearance, gen-
erations must have passed before the old misap-
prehensions could have been removed, and con-
tempt and fear given place to respect and kindly
regard. The Chinese are slow to abandon preju-
dice, and much tact, patience, and manifest open-
handed generosity of feeling would have been
called into exercise before the old barrier wall
could have been torn down and any desirable re-
lationship have been brought into existence.

Most unfortunately, no such conditions have
been fulfilled. True, the Chinese have learned
very much of foreigners during the past sixty
years. But it has been an unwelcome study upon
their part, which of itself would go far to pre-
vent any favorable results. They have been
taught, to their bitter sorrow, the aggressive
force and persistent determination of Western
governments, and the power of the latter to
effect their will. They have had many object
lessons in Western civilization set before them,
some of the highest and best type, and others of
the lowest, most repulsive and degrading. They
have discovered, or think that they have discov-
ered, which amounts to the same, the underlying

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 233

motive and purpose of all Western anxieties
upon their account, and conduct toward them.
And they have at least recognized the necessity
of borrowing one Western idea — the develop-
ment of the resources of the empire in the line
and direction of self-defence.

It must be constantly kept in mind that the
Chinese look at all these — men, manners, the-
ories, and things — through their own eyes. And
they reach their own conclusions from their own
standpoints. That they are often mistaken, con-
stantly misled, and chronically ignorant upon
many points, goes without saying. They suspect
their most faithful friends, reject unselfish coun-
sel, to fall the next moment into some selfish
trap, listen when they ought to be deaf, and
speak when silence would be wisdom. It is no
part of the scope of this volume to blame or de-
fend them, but, so far as a foreigner may, to
faithfully portray their ideas and feelings, and
the effect of the various forms of Western asso-
ciation and intercourse upon them. And it must
be admitted that this effect, upon the whole, has
been to harden and intensify the original anti-
foreign feeling of the Chinese, and to give it a
broader and more positive foundation. What
they once inferred, they claim now to know. The
reasons for this unfortunate result are not far to

REAL CHINESE QUESTION

seek. Some of them are detailed in separate
chapters of this volume, others must be men-
tioned here.

The entire Western atmosphere, so to speak,
is intensely repugnant to the Chinese. They
have never understood nor admitted that the
main purpose for which governments were
created was to foster commerce and money-
making. From their view-point, that is the petty
business of petty men, with which emperors,
kings, and presidents should not interfere.
Forced to submit to a limitation of her natural
rights to regulate her foreign trade, and thus to
an interference with the revenue therefrom, the
constant pressure for the removal of restrictions
and greater trade facilities has been peculiarly
irritating to China. She has been able to see
nothing in it all but utter selfishness, and a de-
termination to force schemes, profitable to the
foreigner, upon her, regardless of any detrimental
effect upon the empire. She believes that, while
foreigners talk much and advise generously
about the development of China, they only de-
sire such development along those specific lines
which will place her more hopelessly in their
power and make her more profitable to them.
She believes that the governments of the West
regard China as a somewhat refractory but timid

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 235

cow, to be forced to stand and be milked so long
as milking proves remunerative, and then, per-
haps, to be slaughtered and quartered for beef.
The Chinese have failed to discover, in all the
discussions with their officials, or concerning the
empire and found in print, little broad-minded,
unselfish regard for Chinese interests. What,
irrespective of all other interests, would be best
for China, is a question seldom considered. They
know, or think they know, that the inquiry:
" What shall be done with China? " is in every
man's mouth, while very few are sufficiently gen-
erous to desire that China should take herself
into her own hands, work out her own problems,
and determine her own destiny.

The Chinese are still unaccustomed to the
world of to-day. They do not realize that this is
an age of trade competition and rivalry, so in-
tense and absorbing that great political govern-
ments, with their armies and navies, are substan-
tially reduced to immense and complicated
machines for the furtherance of commerce and
the accumulation of coin. They do not under-
stand the logic or principle under which im-
mense territories are seized, their inhabitants de-
prived of the right to govern themselves, how-
ever badly, according to their own notions, in
order to furnish a new " channel of commerce,"

236 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

a fresh mine of gold, to any government strong
enough to seize and hold them. But the Chi-
nese are very old-fashioned.

There is, unfortunately, abundant reason for
the conclusion reached by the Chinese regarding
the selfish character of the interest taken in their
country by Western governments and men.
Every person who can read or hear, in Europe
or America, is aware that the question of the
division of China between four great Powers has
been generally discussed in recent years. The
Chinese are not so doltish and ignorant that they
fail to know this. It is not to be expected that
they could see any other purpose in the scheme
than national greed. And, as they are human
beings, the fact of such a discussion excites the
same feelings in them as it would in any other
nation. When Chinese viceroy after viceroy is
urged to reorganize and strengthen the Chinese
army, because in its present condition it cannot
afford sufficient police protection for foreign
trade, and in the same breath is warned against
Russia, he knows, without an introduction, that
his adviser is an Englishman. And he recog-
nizes only too plainly the underlying motive of
the advice. When, again, he is told to beware
of Great Britain, that France and Russia are the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 237

only true friends of China, he smiles quietly and
draws his own conclusions.

And the Chinese are not amiss in their conclu-
sion that the great European Powers desire the
development of the empire only in such ways as
would serve their selfish purposes and increase
the profits of their merchants. This has been
demonstrated over and over again. The writer
was once a fellow-passenger upon a railway-train
in Japan, with four diplomatists representing
European governments at Tokio. In the course
of general conversation, the writer remarked that
such and such a line of action upon the part of
China and Japan would best tend to the develop-
ment of those countries into great nations.
Whereupon the representative of one of the
leading European Powers replied : " But, mon-
sieur, it is not the policy of my government to
permit the growth of China or Japan into a first-
class power." To which the other diplomats
gave assent.

The shrewd statesmen of Japan have recog-
nized the existence of this purely selfish Euro-
pean policy for years. Her opposition to the
dismemberment of China is based largely upon
it. She desires no more of them for near neigh-
bors. And, as long ago as 1881, one of her most

238 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

distinguished officials, in informal conversation,
urged an alliance between the United States,
Japan, and China, to guarantee the autonomy of
Corea, and to prevent further encroachments of
Europe upon Asiatic territory.

Early in 1896, the Emperor of China sent his
distinguished ambassador, Li Hung Chang, to
various foreign countries, charged with two mis-
sions. He was to represent his Imperial Master
at the coronation of the Czar of Russia in Mos-
cow, and he was to thank the governments of
Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain and the
United States for their recent kindly offices dur-
ing the war between China and Japan. The emi-
nent Chinese was received everywhere with the
utmost favor. He was dined, feted, and caressed
by Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade.
The freedom of cities and towns was bestowed
upon him by Lord Mayors and Aldermen. Money
was spent like water, and attentions of every sort
were showered upon him. But presently a mur-
mur arose, which grew into a wail louder and
more angry than the " sounding sea." It
started in Germany, swept over France and Bel-
gium, crossed the Channel, echoed throughout
Great Britain, and finally found articulate voice
in the issue of the London Times of a certain
date in August, which said : " His Excellency, Li

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 239

Hung Chang, sailed yesterday from Southamp-
ton for New York without having negotiated a
loan, or having made a contract of any sort, in
Europe."

Naturally sequent to the objectionable spirit
just described is an air of patronage and pro-
prietorship which greatly offends the Chinese.
No people claim more strenuously the sole own-
ership and control of their native land than these
Orientals. And none believe more absolutely in
their right to do so. They are much given them-
selves to vanity and a patronizing manner. And
they are correspondingly keen to detect and
quick to resent it in others. It is, in general,
only an impalpable and indescribable something
which is none the less exasperating to the Chi-
nese because it cannot be pointed out in definite
acts, and hence objected to in exact language.
At times, however, it is manifested in rudeness
toward officials, lofty disregard of the preju-
dices, feelings, and rights of the common people,
and positive brutality toward native servants.
To kick a Chinaman if he gets in the way, knock
him down if he is impudent, or take a club to a
stupid or refractory servant, are, as the Chinese
claim, practically held to be among the rights,
privileges and liberties of foreigners resident in
the Celestial Empire. Satisfaction is seldom or

REAL CHINESE QUESTION

never obtained for such outrages. And the ex-
tent to which they prejudice the masses of the
people against everything foreign is very much
underestimated. Those who indulge in such
misconduct can only be dealt with through their
own officials. If they are punished the fact is
little likely to be known. And this aggravates
the feeling of anger and resentment.

An official connected with one of the Peking
legations refused to make a contribution for the
relief of the sufferers from a horrible famine in
China, upon the ground that it was sent to relieve
the empire of a swarm of human vermin. An-
other, upon being congratulated that a servant
of his had escaped from a fall with no more se-
rious injury than a broken leg, demurred, and ex-
pressed the wish that the servant had broken his
neck. When he was asked for an explanation, he
said : " If he had been killed, it would have cost
only three dollars for a pine coffin, but now it
will be necessary to pay twenty-five dollars for
medical attendance."

It must not be understood that these inhuman
ideas represent the feeling of a majority of for-
eigners in China toward the natives. But they
are far too common. And, in China as else-
where, the entire class is injured, in the good
esteem of the natives, by acts or expressions of

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 241

brutality upon the part of an individual. An
incident in which just punishment was inflicted
for ill-treatment may be given here, as serving to
prove that justice is sometimes done the Chinese
in such cases, and also as showing the amusing
forms which the native spirit of commercialism
will sometimes take. A Chinese servant in
Shanghai, better informed in the means of pro-
tection afforded him than a majority of his
class, caused his master to be arrested for beat-
ing and kicking him. The case was tried before
the consul, the facts were proved, and the master
was fined twenty-five dollars, which sum was
paid to the servant as a healing salve for his
wounds and bruises. Immediately an epidemic
of insolence, idleness, inattention to duty and
general worthlessness swept over the entire mass
of Chinese servants in Shanghai. They were
saucy, abusive, insulting to their masters and
mistresses. They were careless, slovenly and
destructive of everything which came into their
hands. Reproof, mild or sharp, had no effect.
They rather seemed to desire and court it, and to
strive to provoke their employers to violence.
Violence was often the result, then came a
prompt complaint, arrest, and a fine of twenty-
five dollars for the benefit of the servant. Cases
increased rapidly before the foreign courts. But

242 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

as soon as a magistrate, better skilled in Chinese
character, caused the fine to be paid into court,
instead of handing it over to the lacerated do-
mestic, the entire business at once ceased. It had
been created by the discovery that a Chinaman
of the servant class could earn twenty-five dol-
lars in no way so quickly, and with so little labor,
as by being kicked. Hence he sought for that
form of exercise with its financial results.

The Chinese complain that this air of proprie-
torship is constantly manifested in unreasonable
demands and impertinent criticisms, in denuncia-
tion of any of their officials who manifest a dis-
position to protect native interests, and that it
practically amounts to a refusal to recognize
China as the property of the Chinese. They ob-
ject, perhaps unreasonably, against the applica-
tion to their empire of those two well-known dec-
larations, said to have been made by the unani-
mous voice of a religious body : " Resolved, that
the righteous shall inherit the earth. Resolved,
that we are the righteous."

A somewhat curious comment upon and justi-
fication of this protest and complaint is to be
found in the recent division of China among the
four great European Powers into " spheres of
interest." The debate and correspondence over
the " open door " may also be appropriately con-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 243

sidered in the same connection. And if further
enlightenment is desirable as to the grounds of
this feeling among the Chinese, the reader should
refer to the utterances of the foreign press, both
in China and in Western lands. A distinguished
viceroy has been criticised with great bitterness,
called a traitor and by other abusive names, in
particular, because of a single utterance. He is
charged with having said : " We should use the
foreigner, and not allow the foreigner to use us."
Yet if those identical words had fallen from the
lips of any high official in America or Europe,
they would have been caught up, inscribed upon
banners, and quoted everywhere as the highest
expression of patriotic statesmanship.

It hardly need be said that failures of justice
upon the part of foreign courts in China, trivial
punishments inflicted for grave crimes, and es-
capes from deserved penalties upon some legal
technicality, have done much to embitter the
masses of the Chinese. They may have little law,
but they have stern and summary means of jus-
tice or vengeance, whichever they should be
called, and are not slow to apply these means
whenever they see fit to do so. Mobs and riots
have resulted in China from what the people have
believed to be utter disregard, by foreign officers
of justice, of their rights of property and life.

244 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

An American was arrested in a Chinese city
charged with the abduction of a Buddhist nun, a
mere girl, for immoral purposes. The penalty
attached to this crime under Chinese law is death.
As foreigners in China can only be tried before
their own officials and under the laws of their
native land, he was brought before a United
States consul, found guilty and sentenced to a
term of imprisonment. He appealed to a higher
court, and, while being taken to prison to await
its decision, quietly walked away from the officer
having him in custody, and was never seen again.

An American, master of a schooner, in a broad
channel and a bright summer day, rather than
shift his helm, coolly ran down and sunk a Chi-
nese junk, causing the drowning of three men.
His vessel was seized by the United States con-
sular authorities pending trial. But he put the
officer of the court into an open boat, sailed out
of the harbor, and was never brought to justice.

In the spring of 1883, two foreigners, one of
them being a British subject, were returning to
their homes in Canton after a night spent in
gambling and drinking. It was just at daylight,
and their way led them through a street where
were many Chinese, men, women and chil-
dren, sitting or lounging about the doors of tea-
firing establishments, waiting for the time to be-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 245

gin their day's work. They did not obstruct the
street nor give any cause of offence. Both men
were somewhat intoxicated, and the Englishman,
apparently for amusement, began tapping and
counting off the natives as he passed along, with a
stick which he carried. This was taken in good
part, the Chinese laughing and dodging to
avoid his harmless blows. But this sport aroused
the tiger in the man's blood, and when he reached
his door, near at hand, he ordered a servant to
give him a loaded revolver, and, turning about,
he emptied the weapon into the bodies of the un-
offending Chinese. Two of them were instantly
killed, a third was fatally wounded, and others
received more or less serious injuries.

The man was not arrested by the British
consul until an indignant protest at the delay was
made by the Chinese authorities. He was then
taken to Hong Kong, tried, found guilty, and
sentenced to five years' imprisonment. A most
strenuous objection was made to this manifest
failure of justice, but it received no attention.
The excitement at Canton rose to fever heat, and
public meetings, in denunciation of the conduct of
the British authorities, were held by the people.
While matters were in this critical state, the
quartermaster of a British steamer lying at the
dock in Canton carelessly shoved a Chinese ped-

246 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

dler overboard from the deck of the vessel, and he
was drowned. The man guilty of this heedless
act was not arrested, and when, later, his trial was
demanded by the Viceroy at Canton, the British
authorities refused to take any action in his case.

This second incident set the Chinese people
into instant commotion. A mob gathered and
proceeded to the destruction of property within
the limits of the British concession. Private
dwellings were respected, and no indignity or
harm was offered to human beings. But before
the authorities could suppress the outbreak, store-
houses were broken open, and several hundred
thousand dollars' worth of merchandise was de-
stroyed. The attack was solely directed against
British property, but American, German, and
French merchants were also sufferers, though in
a smaller degree.

The next step in this wretched business was
the transfer of it to the diplomatic officials at
Peking, and the formulation of claims for dam-
ages for the property of foreign merchants de-
stroyed by the mob. In the meantime the im-
perial authorities had taken up the question of
the failure of justice. A statement of marked
ability and unanswerable reasoning had been pre-
pared, in which the revision of the case of the
murderer and a trial of the reckless quartermas-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 247

ter were insisted upon. The only answer given
to this demand was the declaration that Her Bri-
tannic Majesty's Government could not interfere
with the sacred functions of her courts of justice.
The Chinese authorities offered immediate and
full payment of all claims excepting those held by
British subjects. It refused to pay the latter
until the larger question of the inviolability of
human life received decent consideration at the
hands of Great Britain. After months of tedious
discussion, the Chinese Government was per-
suaded, by the good offices of a friendly legation,
to consent to drop, for the moment, the question
of failure of justice and to accept arbitration of
all claims, including those of British merchants.
But the British Minister peremptorily rejected
this arrangement. All questions must be aban-
doned by China, and all claims which he repre-
sented paid without arbitration or abatement.
And this arbitrary conclusion was eventually sub-
mitted to. The sole action taken by the British
authorities, in further regard to the murderer,
was his removal to another prison, since it was
feared that the malarial atmosphere of Hong
Kong might have a prejudicial effect upon his
health.

No words are needed to explain or excuse the
effect of such incidents upon the temper of the

248 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Chinese. They are not of common occurrence,
far less universal. They are passed from mouth
to mouth throughout the empire and help to de-
termine the popular opinion against foreigners.

It is undeniable that much ill-will has been ex-
cited in China by frequent interference upon the
part of Roman Catholic priests between native
professors of that faith and the local authorities.
This is especially the case in the remote south-
western provinces of the empire. The number
of adherents there is large, and the officials, hav-
ing little knowledge of foreigners, are unneces-
sarily timid in the exercise of their authority and
the performance of their duties. They are easily
frightened by the threat of a reference or a com-
plaint to a legation at Peking. The priests there,
in some cases at least, have undertaken to enforce
the idea of the temporal authority of the Church,
and have attempted to add political jurisdiction
to their spiritual functions. The result is bitter
ill-feeling and constant strife. There are more
so-called " missionary cases " in the province of
Sz Chuan in each year than in the entire remain-
ing seventeen provinces of the empire.

The priests are also charged with having as-
sumed official dress and title, and with the habit-
ual violation of certain sumptuary laws of the
empire, laws which are strictly enforced, under

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 249

the most severe penalties, against all Chinese.
These charges also, in some instances at least, are
well founded. A bishop of that Church has been
seen travelling the circuit of his diocese in a
sedan-chair covered with " imperial yellow,"
borne by eight men, and attended by a numerous
retinue and all dressed in official uniform. The
" imperial yellow " is reserved for the exclusive
use of the Emperor, and any Chinese sufficiently
bold to make use of it would suffer immediate de-
capitation. The use of sedan-chairs of the larger
size is restricted to civil and military officials of
and above a specified rank, and none below the
grade of viceroy may employ eight bearers. An-
other bishop journeyed about the network of
rivers and canals found within his jurisdiction,
with the assumed rank, retinue, and flag of an
ambassador, or diplomatic representative of the
highest class.

The product of the forces described in this
and other chapters of this volume as operat-
ing upon the minds of the Chinese, is found
in a chronic, deep-seated, and universal hatred of
any and every thing which has a Western origin.

CHAPTER IX.

OPIUM.

THE history of modern China properly dates
only from the year of Our Lord 1842. In
August of that year, the first treaty establishing
relations with any nation of the modern world
— a treaty of amity and commerce with Great
Britain — was signed at Nanking. It was not
signed willingly, but at the point of the bayonet.
By its terms, China was mulcted to the amount
of twenty-three millions of dollars, and the island
of Hong Kong became British territory. Twelve
millions of the money indemnity were levied to
pay the cost of the war; three millions more
represented debts due by certain Chinese to
British merchants, and six millions were col-
lected as compensation for opium seized and
destroyed by the Chinese authorities at Canton
in May, 1839. It was also stipulated in the
treaty that five ports in southern Chinese waters
should be opened to British trade. Four of

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 251

these had already been occupied by the British
forces.

With nations no less than individuals, the
nature of their mutual relations will depend
largely upon the circumstances under which
their acquaintance began. It may safely be
claimed that to knock a man down is not the
surest path to his high esteem, and that to kick
open his front door will not guarantee an invita-
tion to dinner. It was most unfortunate that
the use of force was necessary to the establish-
ment of foreign relations with China. What
the Chinese will believe, to the end of time, to
have been the real motive for the use of force
renders it substantially impossible to hope for
any cordiality upon their part, in intercourse or
relations with the nations of the Western world.
And the facts go far to justify them in their
belief. It is difficult to move about in China
without inhaling the fumes of opium. And it
is impossible to take even a first step in any
study of her people, of their feeling toward and
ideas concerning the outside world, without
coming into contact with the drug itself. No
true picture of modern China, in its attitude
toward progress, in the opinions and feelings
which dominate the lives and control the con-
duct of its people, from the palace to the mud

252 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

hut, toward all men and all things that are for-
eign, can be correctly painted unless opium is
mixed with the colors. Not all Chinese smoke
it. But it has played a large and deadly part in
distorting the vision, befogging the judgment,
and embittering the minds of the entire mass
of the nation. The very name of the drug in
Chinese proves it not to be indigenous to the
country, but of foreign origin. The proper
name is " yahpien," a manifest attempt to pro-
nounce the word " opium." It is, however,
commonly called " foreign poison," " foreign
medicine," " foreign dirt," " foreign devil's dirt,"
and " foreign devil's medicine." And the repu-
tation of all foreigners, irrespective of national-
ity, is, in the minds of the Chinese, hopelessly
besmirched and soiled by it.

It is supposed that the first knowledge of this
product of the poppy reached China from West-
ern Asia, and probably from Persia. From early
times, rigid laws prohibited the cultivation of the
poppy and the use of opium throughout the em-
pire, and these laws were as thoroughly enforced
as similar legislation in any part of the world.
The police were empowered, without special war-
rant, to enter the homes of those suspected of
the vice, search their premises, persons, and even
" to smell their breaths." The punishment for

MJ U7<i VWVW I I f

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 253

the use of the drug was very severe. And there ]
is no reason to suppose that up to A.D. 1775 any
appreciable proportion of the Chinese were
addicted to the habit.

The British East India Company had a
monopoly of the opium trade in India, and in
A.D. 1773 made a small shipment to China as an
experiment. The speculation doubtless proved
profitable, for, seven years later, two small ves-IL
sels were anchored off the Chinese coast, not
far from Canton, as store-ships, to facilitate the,
traffic. At this time the total importation did
not exceed a thousand chests each year. In
1781 the East India Company sent a vessel direct 3 .
to Canton loaded with sixteen hundred chests,
but it could not be sold to advantage, and was
reshipped out of the country. In 1793 the
Chinese authorities at Canton made serious
complaint of the store-ships mentioned above.1
Their cargo of opium was thereupon loaded into
a single ship, which proceeded to the mouth of
the river below Canton, where she remained for
more than a year. The vessel was not molested,
but her cargo could not be disposed of. She
finally went to sea, where the opium was trans-
ferred to another vessel, which brought it di-
rectly back to Canton, where it was sold under
the disguise of medicine. About this time the

254 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

smuggling of opium into Southern China was
brought to the notice of the authorities at
Peking, and in A.D. 1800, the importation was
prohibited under heavy penalties, because, as
the Emperor declared, " it wasted the time and
destroyed the property of the Chinese people."
The practice of importing it disguised as medi-
cine, however, still continued, and in 1809 the
consignees of foreign ships at the mouth of the
river below Canton were required to give bonds
that no ships discharging cargo there had opium
on board. The smuggling still went on, and in
1820 the viceroy at Canton and the collector of
customs issued an order forbidding any vessel
having opium on board to enter the port, and
holding pilots and consignees personally respon-
sible for any violations of the order.

In spite of imperial decrees, prohibitive regula-
tions, and all of the efforts of the higher author-
ities, the contraband trade prospered, and the
illicit importation of opium increased to an alarm-
ing extent. The profits of the traffic were so
enormous that large sums of money could be
spent in bribery, and the cupidity of petty officials
afforded easy opportunities for evasion of the
law. A regular tariff of blackmail was agreed
upon, and paid to local officers at the rate of a
fixed sum per chest of opium landed. Fast na-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 255

tive boats, heavily armed and manned, received
the drug from foreign vessels and landed it, the
nature of the seacoast below Canton rendering
detection almost impossible. If attacked, the
crews of these boats fought desperately, as
prompt decapitation was the penalty of capture.
The traffic grew to such proportions that again a
depot of receiving ships, for the receipt and dis-
tribution of opium, was established between
Macao and the mouth of the river below Canton,
changing anchorage to different quarters during
the typhoon season for greater security.

The traffic also spread up the Chinese coast to
the north of Canton. In 1831, the Jamesina, a
small craft, went as far north as Foo Chow and
sold opium to the amount of $330,000. Small,
fast-sailing foreign vessels cruised along the en-
tire coast of China, going even to Manchuria,
peddling opium. In some cases, owing to the
incorruptibility of native officials, these ventures
resulted in loss. In the main, however, the busi-
ness was enormously profitable. Regular lines ^
of swift opium schooners were gradually placed /
in the service, and receiving ships established at
certain points to furnish a constant supply for the
rapidly increasing demand. None of these ves-
sels being Chinese, in the absence of treaty con-
cessions, they had no -right of entry to any

256 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Chinese port. The local authorities, timid, and
afraid to employ force, first contented themselves
with the issue of paper commands and exhorta-
tions, until, finding these of no avail, they in turn
were debauched by bribes, and winked at a con-
traband and deadly traffic which they lacked the
energy to destroy.

During all this time, that is to say, from 1773
to 1839 — a period of sixty-six years — not one
t> word is known to have been uttered by the British
Government against this nefarious traffic. It had
practically succeeded to the rich inheritance of
the British East India Company, though the for-
mal assumption of direct control did not come
until later. With this inheritance it had acquired
the monopoly of opium production in India. It
must have known that the importation of opium
was in violation of the laws of China, and that
determined efforts were being made by the gov-
ernment at Peking to suppress it, efforts so de-
termined that death was the penalty meted out to
any native caught in the prosecution of the traffic.
It must have known that the large fleet of fast-
sailing, opium-smuggling vessels, with few ex-
ceptions, flew — and disgraced — the British flag.
It professed an earnest desire to establish friendly
and commercial relations with the Chinese Em-
pire. Yet it had not a word to say. Great Brit-

.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 257

ain only spoke out when the Emperor showed his
determination to stop the traffic at all costs, and
when his servant, sent to Canton for that special
purpose, proved by drastic measures that he had
the courage and determination to do his master's
will. Then Great Britain was aroused to utter-
ance.

The crash came in 1839.

During the years 1837 and 1838, the struggle
all along the Chinese coast, between the author-
ities upon the one hand and the smugglers upon
the other, had increased in intensity. The for-
mer, spurred by evidence that the illegal traffic
was attracting serious attention at Peking, and by
the receipt of more stern commands therefrom,
either doubled their efforts or their price for con-
nivance. The smugglers were correspondingly
stimulated by the increased demand for opium
and the enormous profits derived from the busi-
ness. The foreign dealers rarely came into con-
flict with the authorities. They made use of the
natives as catspaws, who took the lion's share of
the danger, but not his share of the profits.

That the British Government was interested in
the traffic and the direction which that interest
took is shown by a correspondence between Cap-
tain Elliot, Superintendent of British Trade at
Canton, and Rear-Admiral Capel, commanding

258 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

the British fleet in Indian waters. In 1837, Cap-
tain Elliot wrote to the admiral, requesting him
to send a vessel of war to China to visit the points
where the store-ships for opium were anchored
and the trade carried on, " as one of the move-
ments best calculated, either to carry the provin-
cial government back to the system of connivance
which has hitherto prevailed, or to hasten onward
the legalization measure from the court " (at Pe-
king). The British sloop-of-war Raleigh was
sent to China in compliance with this request,
where she remained many months, and where,
among other services to this British trade, she
secured the release of the foreign portion of the
crew of the opium brig Fairy, who had been ar-
rested and were held at Foo Chow. But her Bri-
tannic Majesty's Government evidently consid-
ered that the traffic was of sufficient importance
to demand the presence of more than a single ves-
sel of war, for, in the same year, Admiral Capel
received orders from Her Majesty's secretary
directing him to proceed to China in person.

By the end of 1838, the traffic had grown to
such proportions that there were more thanjifty
small vessels, flying the British and American
flags, cruising upon the river between Canton
and the sea, nearly all of which were engaged in
smuggling opium ! Heavily manned and armed,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 259

the Chinese revenue cruisers did not dare attack
them, and their business was carried on without
any pretence of disguise or secrecy. Upon the
loth of March, 1839, Commissioner Lin arrived
at^ Canton and entered upon the discharge of his
official duties. Because of his known energy and
determination, he had been selected by the Em-
peror, Tao Kwang, and sent to Canton to thor-
oughly eradicate the opium traffic, and was in-
vested with the most unqualified authority ever
conferred upon a Chinese subject. It was re-
ported that the Emperor, while conferring with
Lin before the departure of the latter from the
capital, burst into tears and exclaimed : " How<
can I die and go to meet the spirits of my impe-
rial father and ancestors until these direful evils'
are removed ? "

The Imperial Commissioner was equally
prompt and positive in the execution of his mis-
sion. Eight days after his arrival, he issued an
order requiring Chinese and foreign merchants
to deliver, within three days, every particle of
opium in the port of Canton to him and to give
bonds that they would bring no more. Death
was the penalty to be paid for failure to comply
with this demand, and the Chinese merchants
were held personally accountable for the compli-
ance of foreigners. At that time there were

160 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

twenty-two vessels having as cargo, in part, 20,-
291 chests of opium in the harbor of Canton.
At an average weight of 125 pounds per chest, it
would amount to 2,536,375 pounds of opium,
and it was estimated to be worth at the current
market price about nine millions of dollars. It
had paid a tax of nearly that sum to the British
Crown before being sold by it in India for ship-
ment to smugglers upon the Chinese coast.

It is unnecessary to give details of the short
but acrid correspondence which followed this de-
mand. It must be admitted that much of Lin's
language was arrogant and offensive in tone.
He had had no previous dealings with for-
eigners, was ignorant of the official status of
Captain Elliot, and regarded him merely as the
hired chief of a body of merchants, the lowest
class in the social scale. Upon the other hand,
he appealed to the foreigners to comply with his
demand upon four good grounds: Because they
were men and had reason; because the laws of
China forbade the use of opium under very se-
vere penalties; because they should have pity for
those who suffered from using it ; and because of
thei^jyesejit straits, from which compliance
with the order could alone release them. It
must be explained that Commissioner Lin had
placed a cordon of guards about all the ships, and

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 261

residences of those concerned in the traffic, and
forbidden the Chinese to furnish them with food
or water. It must be evident that, whatever his
methods, Lin was, upon the whole, moderate in
his demands. In view of the facts, he would
have been entirely justified in the seizure and
confiscation of all the ships with their entire
cargoes and in the punishment of all persons en-
gaged in the illicit traffic, natives and foreigners
alike.

The foreign merchants first attempted to bribe
the Imperial Commissioner, and a " contribu-
tion " of 1037 chests was subscribed among
them for that purpose. This scheme failing, the
entire amount of opium was eventually surren-
dered, and most of the foreign merchants gave a
written pledge " not to deal in opium nor to at-j
tempt to introduce it into the Chinese Empire."'1
Many of them, however, broke their pledges and
soon after again became actively engaged in the
trade. As soon as the opium had reached the
hands of Commissioner Lin, he caused the entire
quantity to be dumped into trenches prepared
for the purpose, where it was mixed with lime
and salt water, and then drawn off by creeks into
the sea. The operation was watched most
closely to prevent any portion of the drug being
abstracted, and one Chinese, caught in the at-

262 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

tempt to conceal and carry away a small quan-
tity, was beheaded upon the spot.

Commissioner Lin was charged with two
duties by his imperial master : the suppression of
the opium traffic at all hazards, and the restora-
tion of legitimate commerce, which had been
practically destroyed. He failed in both. In
spite of the written pledge given by the mer-
chants, the sales of opium began again, even be-
fore the destruction of the immense quantity
surrendered to him, and the business increased
rapidly as soon as it was known that so large a
quantity had actually been destroyed. Col-
lisions between the Chinese authorities and
people upon the one side, and those suspected
or known to be engaged in the contraband traf-
fic, increased in frequency and in their serious
character, and rendered all honest commerce im-
possible. In the meantime intelligence of the
general conduct of Commissioner Lin at Can-
ton, and especially of the seizure and destruction
of opium by him, reached London, and at last
It the British lion found his voice. It was not used
to crush out a traffic which was both morally
and politically indefensible, but to demand " sat-
isfaction and reparation for the late injurious
proceedings of certain officers of the Emperor of
China against certain of our officers and sub-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 263

jects." In the debates in Parliament upon the
subject, Sir John Hobhouse said that the British
Government had done nothing to stop the opium
trade because it was profitable. Lord Melbourne
said : " We possess immense territories pecu-
liarly fitted for raising opium, and though he
could wish that the government were not so di-
rectly concerned in the traffic, he was not pre-
pared to pledge himself to relinquish it." And
Lord Ellenborougji, with even greater frank-
ness, spoke of the seven and a half millions of
dollars revenue then annually derived " from
foreigners " by means of the contraband trade
which, if the opium monopoly were given up and
the cultivation of poppy abandoned, they must
seek elsewhere.

The British forces ordered to exact reparation
for the conduct of Commissioner Lin arrived
near Canton in June, 1841, and announced a
blockade of that port. Skirmishes interlarded
with discussions continued throughout the re-
mainder of the year, and were spread over the en-
tire coast of China. In January, 1842, an agree-
ment was reached between the commissioners
appointed by Great Britain and China, by which
the latter was to pay an indemnity of six millions
of dollars and cede the island and harbor of
Hong Kong to the British Crown. This adjust-

264 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

ment of the difficulty was promptly repudiated
by the sovereigns of both countries — by the
Emperor of China because he was unable to see
why he should pay an indemnity for an attempt
to crush out a contraband traffic, and by the Brit-
ish Queen because the indemnity for interference
with her monopoly was deemed insufficient.
The opium war was therefore continued until the
following August, when it ended with the cap-
ture of Nanking, and the negotiation of a treaty
as mentioned at the head of this chapter.

It is a curious fact that the active cause of all
the trouble — opium — was not mentioned in the
treaty. Sir Henry Pottinger, the British Com-
missioner, was unable to secure the legalization
of the traffic, and would not undertake the re-
sponsibility, on behalf of his government, of any
attempt to suppress it. The Chinese Commis-
sioners would not even consent to discuss the
opium question until assured that it was intro-
duced merely as a topic for private conversation.
Then, according to a British official report of
the interview, they inquired eagerly : " Why we
would not act fairly toward them by prohibiting
the growth of the poppy in our dominions, and
thus effectually stop a traffic so pernicious to
kthe human race." Sir Henry Pottinger's answer
might have been anticipated. He replied, ac-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 265

cording to the same authority, that the remedy
for the evil " rests entirely with yourselves. If
your people are virtuous, they will desist from
the evil practice; and if your officers are incor-
ruptible and obey your orders, no opium can
enter your country. The discouragement of the
growth of the poppy in our territories rests prin-
cipally with you, for nearly the entire produce
cultivated in India travels east to China." A
truly interesting answer, and advice of the high-
est moral worth, when it came from the lips of an
active agent of a war costing thousands of lives,
and a representative of a so-called Christian na-
tion which had that very day mulcted China in
the sum of twenty-one millions of dollars and the
cession of valuable territory, because certain in-
corruptible Chinese officers had endeavored to
discourage the growth of the poppy in India by
preventing opium from entering China ! It may
be said in passing that this same Sir Henry Pot-
tinger went out of his way some years later to
declare " in a public manner," as he himself
states, that " the great, and perhaps I might say
sole, objection to the trade, looking at it morally
and abstractly, that I have discovered is that it
is at present contraband and prohibited by the
laws of China . . . but I have striven to
bring about legalization; and were that point

266 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

once effected, I am of opinion that its most ob-
jectionable feature would be altogether re-
moved."

Other Englishmen were not so purblind or
venal. Shortly after the conclusion of the treaty
at Nanking, a large number of English mer-
chants and manufacturers memorialized Sir Rob-
ert Peel, claiming that commerce with China
could not be conducted on a safe and satisfactory
basis so long as the contraband trade in opium
was allowed. They maintained that opium would
V enervate and impoverish the consumers of it, and
thus disable them from purchasing other wares.
And the memorialists pointed out that the
opium then smuggled into China exceeded in
value the total amount of tea and silk exported,
as proof of the rapid impoverishment of the em-
pire. This memorial received no attention at
the hands of the British Government. None need
have been expected, for the British Government
itself was the actual trader in opium, and
the profits were too large to permit any consid-
1 eration for the interests of smaller merchants and
manufacturers. And perhaps the memorialists
deserved no notice. Their motives were purely
selfish. They showed no care for the impoverish-
ment and debauchery of the Chinese nation, ex-
cept so far as those results of the traffic might

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 267

touch their own pockets. And they were not
alone in their selfishness. In all the discussions
to which the opium war gave rise in Great Brit-
ain, seldom was a word uttered about the moral-
ity of the contraband traffic or the deadly effects
of the vice upon its victims. The entire subject
was argued solely from the standpoint of its ef-
fect upon British commerce. One newspaper
went so far as to suggest the manufacture of
morphine to tempt the Chinese, so that they
might have opium in a more delicate form to suit
the taste of the higher classes.

During the years following the negotiation of
the treaty of Nanking, the illegal trade was 1 1
pushed and extended in every direction. Heav-
ily-armed opium schooners made their trips up
and down the entire Chinese coast, from Hong
Kong to the mouth of the Peiho, with almost the
regularity of modern mail steamers. Opium was
openly smoked in many of the large cities. The ••»
ohl laws forbidding the purchase, sale, or use of
the drug under the penalty of death were stilHn
force. But no official dared put them into exe-
cution. The Chinese Government had suffered
bitter humiliation and punishment for daring to
interfere with the trade, for venturing to enforce
itsjDwn laws within its own territory upon~lts
own people and such foreigners as were guilty of

268 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

crimes against the state and within its jurisdic-
tion. It could do nothing more.

It is true that Sir Henry Pottinger issued
proclamations, warning British subjects that the
importation of opium into Chinese ports was
illegal, and that persons engaged in it would be
granted no protection from the British authori-
ties. He also forbade British vessels from going
north of Shanghai under pain of seizure and con-
fiscation. But when Captain Hope, of the British
man-of-war Thalia, stopped several opium
schooners which were going north of Shanghai,
he was promptly removed from his command and
ordered to India, where — to quote the words of
Lord Palmerston's despatch — " he could not in-
terfere in such a manner with the undertakings
of British subjects." This incident, and others
of a similar nature, proved that the orders and
proclamations of the British representative were
mere idle words, for which neither respect nor
obedience was desired. Their sole purpose was
to throw the responsibility for the traffic upon
the Chinese. And the British men-of-war upon
the China station were not there to suppress
opium smuggling, but to see that it was not in-
terfered with.

This state of affairs continued until 1860,
when, at the close of another war with Qufla»

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 269

Great Britain secured, by the treaty of Tientsin,
what had been her determined object from the
first — the legalization of the opium traffic.
Though there was much friction between the
governments of China and Great Britain, grow-
ing out of disputed points in the treaty of Nan-
king and the general attitude of the Chinese, yet
the immediate cause of the second war, like the
first, was the opium traffic. The Chinese au-
thorities at ~ Canton had seized a small vessel
called the Arrow. She was owned and manned
by Chinese, though illegally flying the Brit-
ish flag, and was engaged in the illicit traf-
fic. These facts — and they were proved to be
facts — were set forth by the Chinese in answer to
a demand for reparation made by Sir John Bow-r
ring, the same gentleman, by the way, who wrote
the beautiful hymn, " In the Cross of Christ I
Glory." The only answer made by that Chris-
tian poet and British representative was the de-
struction of the forts below Canton and the
bombardment of that city. This second war, be-
gun in 1857 at Canton, was ended at^Peking in
1860. As already stated, the terms of peace with
which it ended included the legalization of the
trade in opium. Since the accomplishment of
this result, Great Britain, though she has for-
mulated many serious and genuine grievances

REAL CHINESE QUESTION

against China, has never seen occasion to seek
correction of them with the sword.

Perhaps a very brief analysis of the financial
side of the opium traffic will explain the modera-
tion and complacency shown by Great Britain
toward China during the past forty years. In
securing the legal entry of opium into Chinese
ports, England dictated the import duty charge-
able upon it, and had fixed that duty at about
forty cents a pound. The same pound of opium
had paid the British Crown a tax of a trifle more
than three dollars and one-half before leaving
India, or about nine times as much as could be
levied upon it at the port of destination. A chest
of opium, containing an average of 125 pounds,
paid from $125 to $130 to the Indian farmer who
cultivated the poppy and produced the crude
drug; about $425 to the British Government;
and about $50 to the Chinese revenue. To en-
large the figures again, in the year 1878-9 the
total export from India was 91,200 chests, from
which England derived an income of $38,500,-
ooo, upon which China was allowed to collect
only $4,560,000. Surely to a government caring
only for the money outturn of any business, this
division of income would naturally furnish food
for satisfaction and complacency.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 271

It required about 1,700,000 acres of land to
produce this quantity of opium. To what extent
the diversion of that large area from poppies to
the cultivation of food products would tend to
lessen or prevent the horrible famines so fre-
quent in India, is a question for the philan-
thropist rather than the financier.

It has already been stated that in 1842 certain
British merchants and manufacturers protested
against the continuance of the traffic in opium,
upon the ground of the impoverishment of the
Chinese nation, and their consequent inability to
purchase other products. The official returns of
Chinese foreign trade for 1871 show that more
than three-fifths of the total imports from a
British source consisted of opium. In that year
nearly $64,000,000 worth of the drug was im-
ported, while the total exports of all Chinese
commodities, to all parts of the world, was less
than $105,000,000. John Bull's bill against
China tHat yeafTor opium furnished was nearly
three times the amount due to China for all mer-
chandise sold to any nation except the English.
And it was more than three-fifths of the entire
sum due China for all native produce exported to
foreign parts. Two-thirds of all tea and silk sent
abroad from China was paid for with Indian

272 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

opium. And if the large quantity of the drug
still smuggled into the country could be valued,
it would become evident that China received
only opium for her enormous export of those
two staple articles. Well may Great Britain be
moderate and complacent in her treatment of the
Chinese Government. She balances the accounts
of the world with China with opium. And when
a foreigner of any other nationality pays a debt
due the Chinese, the money goes, not to the
Celestials, but to London.

By nearly all British writers upon the opium
question, it is assumed that the Chinese author-
ities were not in earnesj: in their efforts to sup-
press the contraband trade. It is, perhaps, nat-
ural that they should raise such a point, in order
to justify the course of their government, and to
hoodwink the outside world. But they know
better. The facts of the entire history speak for
themselves. Commissioner Lin went to Canton
with specific instructions from his imperial mas-
ter, Tao Kwang, to suppress the opium traffic
and reopen legitimate commerce. It is true that
in 1834 and the years succeeding, the Chinese of-
ficials had interfered with the legitimate foreign
trade at Canton, where it had been carried on for
many years. " But there were reasons for their
action. Their chief cause of complaint was the in-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 273

troduction of opium by the merchants, and for
years they attempted by every means in their
power, by stopping all foreign trade, by demands
for the prohibition of the traffic in the drug, and
by vigilant preventive measures, to put a stop to
its importation. On the 3d April, 20,283 (20,-
291) chests of opium were handed over to the
mandarins, and were by them destroyed — a suffi-
cient proof that they were in earnest in their en-
deavors to suppress the traffic." The authority
here quoted is the " Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
which surely cannot be held to be anti-British in
its sympathies.

It is paying but scant respect to the intelli-
gence and good sense of the average reader to
discuss another argument brought forward by
apologists for the course of Great Britain. Yet
it must be mentioned here. The argument is
that the use of opium does the Chinese no harm;
that, owing to some peculiarity in their physical
construction, it is not only innocuous, but as
necessary to them " as his beer to the English-
man." The letter of Sir Henry Pottinger upon
this point has already been quoted. Another
apologist speaks of the drug as a " useful
soother, a harmless luxury, and a precious medi-
cine, except to those who abuse it," and he at-
tributes the " persevering economy and never-

274 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

ceasing industry " of the Chinese to its use !
Others have described it as " harmless as milk "
to the Oriental !

If the mere thinking about opium can so com-
pletely narcotize the judgment, becloud the
good sense, and distort the vision of otherwise
clear-headed, logical-minded Englishmen, what
must the effect of actual and constant use of the
drug be upon the Chinese, who perhaps have not
the same stamina with which to resist the effects
of the habit ! In spite of all this special pleading,
and array of imaginary facts, the truth remains
that the habitual use of any form of opium by
any human being, Occidental or Oriental, con-
stitutes a vice more hopeless and deadly in its
results than any other known among men.
There are ample proofs of this statement, so~"far
as it refers to the people of Europe or America,
and the Chinaman forms no exception to the
rule. After all has been said about his peculi-
arities, he is compounded from the same formula
with the Anglo-Saxon or other Western races.
Opium is more deadly than alcohol, because it
fastens its grip more quickly and firmly upon the
victim. No language can exaggerate the evil
results of the habit. No honest person who has
seen its effects upon the Chinese can describe it

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 275

as other than an awful curse. To force it upon
China was a crime against humanity.

One Chinese writer describes it as tenfold more
deadly than arsenic, inasmuch as the suicide by
arsenic dies at once, while the opium victim suf-
fers untold horrors and dies by inches. He men-
tions cases in which men have pawned their wives
and sold their daughters in order to procure the
drug. And such cases are by no means rare.
The writer has seen an able-bodied and appar-
ently rugged laboring Chinese tumble all in a
heap upon the ground utterly nerveless and un-
able to stand, because the time for his dose of
opium had come, and until the craving was sup-
plied he was no longer a man, but the merest
heap of bones and flesh. In the great majority
of cases death is the sure result of any deter-
mined reform. The poison has rotted the whole
system, and no power to resist the simplest dis-
ease~remains. In many years' residence in China,
the writer knew of but four men who finally
abandoned the habit. Three of them lived but a
few months thereafter. The fourth survived his
reformation, but was a life-long invalid.

Though the Chinese Government was at last,
in 1860, whipped into an assent to the importa-
tion of opium, its bitter opposition to the traffic

276 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

was in no degree lessened. It simply dared no

longer attempt to enforce its own laws. Efforts

to do this, begun thirty and more years before,

had resulted in the loss of thousands of lives, in

repeated and almost uninterrupted humiliation,

in the payment of large indemnities to Great

Britain, and, more recently, in the capture of the

Taku forts and Tientsin, in the investment of

Peking by a foreign army, the seizure of one of

the city gates, the plunder and destruction of

the Summer Palace, the flight of the Emperor

\ and his death in what was practical exile, and, to

I crown all, a coerced consent to the hideous

I opium traffic.

From the point of view of the Chinese Govern-
ment, and that alone is of concern in this chapter,
all of these evils, sorrows and losses came as the
result of a patriotic determination upon its part
to protect its people against impoverishment,
debauchery and destruction, by the enforcement
of the laws of the empire. Again, from their
point of view, the Chinese authorities deserved
success. They met with the most humiliating
and hopeless failure. They had pledged them-
selves to sit with folded arms, while their ancient
and wholesome laws were violated and their
people sucked dry of morality, manhood, and
money, by a black vampire from India, let loose

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 277

upon them by Great Britain, to satisfy its own
insatiable greed.

China dared no longer resist. Nothing re-
mained but the poor privilege to plead, to beg,
and remonstrate. ""And this she continued to (To
at intervals, until even Chinese persistency was
exhausted by refusals, rebuffs, or contemptuous
silence. She made offers of concessions to any
form of legitimate commerce in any part of the
empire, if only the opium trade might be
stopped, either at once or by a graded reduction
in the annual import. Meeting with no success
in this direction, she asked permission to increase
the duty upon the drug. Great Britain promptly
accepted the concessions offered in return for
this poor favor, and then refused to permit the
increase of duty.

In the summer of 1873, the writer had occasion
to discuss certain outstanding matters between
the United States and China with Wen Hsiang,
then prime minister, and one of the most able
statesmen of the empire. Official business hav-
ing been concluded, the prime minister said:
" Now let us forget that we represent two differ-
ent governments and only remember that we are
friends, as I have two perplexing questions
about which I am most anxious to obtain your
advice." This having been agreed to, Wen

278 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Hsiang made the following statement, of one of
the two questions upon which he sought friendly
counsel : As a result of long-continued and
anxious discussions over the opium traffic, and
the alarming spread of the vice of opium-smok-
ing throughout the empire — discussions in
which the Empress Dowager, the Empress
Mother, the Imperial Family Council, the Cab-
inet, and all the viceroys throughout the empire
had taken part — it had been decided to prepare
a personal appeal in the name of the young Em-
peror, then under age, to the Queen of Great
Britain, setting forth the evils being wrought
upon the Chinese nation in consequence of the
importation of opium, and begging her, in the
name of a common humanity, to agree with him
upon measures by which the traffic might be at
once, or gradually, brought to an end.

Such a letter was prepared. It showed the
dreadful harm already wrought in China by
opium and increasing with frightful rapidity. It
pointed out that the traffic was the foe to all right-
ful_commerce, and if allowed to continue would
put an encTto the latter, by leaving the Chinese
neither money nor commodities to exchange for
foreign products. It offered anything that
might be desired in the way of concession to
British trade, anywhere in the empire, agreeing

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 279

in advance to yield to any demand, if only this /
one curse against which China had fought in
vain for years might be removed. And it begged
Her Majesty, both as acuueen and as a woman,
to heed the appeal, and to concert measures for
the suppression of the hideous opium curse. The
letter was phrased with the utmost care to avoid
wounding the pride of, or giving any offence to,
the British nation. It was despatched in 1868
through the British Legation at Peking, the
minister being requested to take special meas- j
ures to ensure that it reached the hands of the '
Queen.

Some six months having passed and no reply
coming to hand, a member of the Cabinet in-
quired casually of the British Minister at Peking
whether any answer had been received to the
letter of His Majesty to the Queen. He was
told that none had come. This was repeated
several times, at intervals of months, with always
the same result. Then an unofficial communica-
tion was sent to Her Majesty's representative re-
questing him to inform the Chinese Cabinet
whether the Emperor's letter had reached the
Queen, and, if so, when a response to it might
be expected. After the interval necessary for
transmission of inquiry and answer, they were
told that the Emperor's letter had reached Her

280 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Majesty, but no intimation was given concern-
ing an answer from her. Again, after waiting
some months, the Chinese Cabinet addressed a
formal despatch to the British Minister, request-
ing to know when they might be favored with a
reply to His Imperial Majesty's letter. To this
despatch they received a prompt answer, saying
that no reply had been received, and adding
curtly that none need be expected. And Wen
Hsiang desired the advice of the writer as to
what had best be done in view of these facts.

Many months after this conversation and after
the death of the Chinese prime minister, who
was a party to it, the writer came upon an article
in the International Review — a London publi-
cation— written by a distinguished British advo-
cate and Queen's Counsel, entitled, " Great Brit-
ain, India, China and the Opium Question." In
it the writer mentioned this appeal of the
Emperor Tung Chih to Queen Victoria, and
said : " To the everlasting shame and disgrace of
jthe British nation, no answer was ever made to
[this appeal. The reason is obvious, no answer
Kvas possible."

In January, 1875, the Chinese Government
prepared and submitted to all governments, then
represented at Peking, a lengthy and detailed
complaint of the opium traffic, and requested the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 281

action of all friendly nations in bringing it to an
end. The British Government answered with a
series of counter charges, but promised nothing
with regard to opium.

In the summer of 1876 serious diplomatic ne-
gotiations occurred at Chefoo between Sir
Thomas Wade, then British Minister, and His
Excellency, Li Hung Chang. The murder of a
British consular officer upon the border line be-
tween China and Burmah, and various other mat-
ters, had made these negotiations necessary. As
a result, and while denying that the murder was
done by Chinese, the Chinese Government made
reparation for the crime, and agreed, among
other things, to open several additional ports
upon the coast to British commerce, only asking
in return the privilege of increasing the import
duty upon opium from forty cents a pound to
about fifty-five. Her Britannic Majesty's Gov-
ernment promptly accepted the various conces-
sions made by China, sent consular officers to
each of the new ports and opened trade in them,
and then repudiated the Chefoo convention, or
rather that part of it which allowed China to in-
crease the opium duty fifteen cents a pound.

In November, 1880, a commission, appointed
by the President, concluded at Peking two
treaties between the United States ancl China.

282 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

The second treaty contained a stringent article
forbidding American citizens from taking any
part in the opium trade in China. They could
neither buy nor sell the drug, nor transport it
upon their ships. A couple of days after these
treaties were signed, the writer had an informal
interview with His Excellency, Li Hung Chang,
then viceroy at Tientsin. The viceroy, after ex-
pressing his deep satisfaction that the United
States had withdrawn from all complicity with
the traffic in opium, said : " I have watched and
have had to do with the foreign relations of
China for many years. I have read the Bible, in
which you foreigners believe, and have seen in it
the same golden rule which Confucius teaches.
And this action of the United States in forbid-
ding its people to deal with opium in China is
the^ first and only applicatipnj)£^hat gulden rule
/• to be found in all the conduct of foreign govern-
ments toward China."

The Chinese statesman did not speak without
some warrant in making this sweeping declara-
tion. If the entire correspondence upon the
opium question, from beginning to end, had be-
tween the Emperor of China and the Queen of
Great Britain — between a heathen emperor and
a Christian queen, as each is commonly called —
could be submitted to an honest outsider, who

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 283

knew nothing of the religious pretensions of
either, there is every reason to fear that he would
conclude that, by some error of type-setting or
proof-reading, the adjectives " heathen " and
" Christian " had been interchanged.

Utterly discouraged and disheartened at the
failure of all efforts, whether by force or remon-
strance, to check the importation of opium, the
Chinese Government abandoned the attempt.
And it also ceased to restrain the cultivation of
the poppy in China. The ancient laws forbid-
ding the use of the soil for such purpose were
not repealed. For the Emperor, the author of all
law, being, like the Pope, held infallible, never
directly rescinds any action taken by his imperial
ancestors. But the laws were not enforced, and
large areas of the country gradually blossomed
out^with poppies. A member of the Chinese
Cabinet frankly admitted that this policy had
been adopted after full consideration. They
dared not attempt to restrict the importation of
Indian opium nor the punishment of natives for
smoking it. The only recourse left them was to
fight fire with fire, to cut off the demand for the
foreign drug with an abundant native supply.
He cynically claimed two advantages for this
line of action — the native drug being produced
in a cooler climate, was less injurious than the

284 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Indian, and the money spent upon it would be
retained in China, and would not pass into the
pockets of foreigners.

No extended argument can be needed to make
plain the inevitable results of the opium traffic
upon every phase of development and progress
in China. It has been a triple bar against both,
since it has impoverished the empire in purse,
muscle and brain. The forced introduction of
opium to China constituted a greater crime
against humanity than the African slave trade.
And Great Britain herself has been the most
serious foe to the increase of foreign commerce
with China and the development of her enormous
natural resources. She has been the enemy to the
honest trade of every nation with that empire.
For foreign commerce must depend mainly upon
internal prosperity. And the question how much
increase in foreign traffic may be expected with
any nation, whose people are from year to year
more hopelessly stupefied, besotted and impov-
erished by opium is a question which answers
itself. No growing demand for foreign cotton
goods or woolens may be expected from men —
mere wretched bundles of bones — who, because
of opium, are unable to buy enough of the mean-
est native rags to cover their nakedness. The
conveniences and luxuries of Western civiliza-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 285

tion furnish no attraction to the man whose only
convenience is an opium lamp and whose only
idea of luxury is the opium pipe.

There is a peculiar fitness in the fact that
Great Britain is herself the greatest sufferer from
her vicious policy. She is the only European
nation which sells any appreciable amount of
commodities to the Chinese. Russia is not an
exporting country. Germany has become such
only in recent years. The silks of France natu-
rally find no market in China, the mother land
of all silk industries; the Chinese fortunately
have acquired no appetite for her wines or
brandies, and the infinite variety of French
fancy articles appeal neither to their taste nor
their pockets. In 1871 the entire imports into
China from the whole of Continental Europe
amounted to barely $300,000. During the same
period British imports, excluding opium,
amounted to more than $63,000,000. And the
hundreds of millions of dollars which she has
drawn from China, during the past sixty years,
for opium represent a small sum when compared
with what might have been gained, to the advan-
tage of both countries, if she had suppressed the
sale of the drug, and confined herself to lines of
honest commerce.

Another serious and widespread result of the

286 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

opium traffic is the intense hatred of all things
and all men foreign. It is quite unnecessary to
vilify the missionary body, in order to discover
the cause of this bitter anti-foreign feeling so
universal in China. While otner causes have
co-operated to generate and sustain it, the larg-
est single cause, the most important factor, is
the source, history and results of opium. And
that man must be blind indeed to the ordinary
operations of human nature who could expect
any other result. Let any intelligent, fair-minded
reader put himself into the place of the Chinese,
run over in his mind the history of the use of this
narcotic poison in that great Oriental empire,
and then decide what the resultant and inevitable
feeling must be toward the authors of such a
scourge.

Probably no people upon earth ever possessed
so much national vanity and conceit as the Chi-
nese. It had been bred in them for hundreds of
years, and was justified in their minds by the fact
that the only races with which they had come
into contact for many centuries were greatly in-
ferior to them in every respect. From their
point of view, they have been attacked and over-
come by an unknown and necessarily inferior
race, for the sake of the money which was to be
made by forcing a deadly poison upon them. Is

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 287

any other explanation of the anti-foreign feeling
in the Chinese Empire necessary?

It covers foreigners of all nationalities, because
the mass of the people are able to make no dis-
crimination among them. Orjium is a foreign
drug forced upon them by foreigners — that
covers the whole question. Every victim of the
drug, and he is everywhere to be found, is a
walking advertisement and argument to the evil
of everything foreign. And in the case of the
slave to the vice, his brain is narcotized, and
every moral and manly quality deadened by the
fumes of the Indian drug, but the hatred of the
foreigner who has furnished and forced this
deadly comfort upon him is cultivated and in-
tensified by the sense of his own degradation.

The writer listened for some time one after-
noon to a missionary, addressing a large gather-
ing of natives upon the street of an interior city
of China. Near by and upon the outskirts of the
crowd stood a middle-aged Chinese, evidently of
the literary class and having a countenance of
much intelligence. Physically he was a mere
walking skeleton. The tiny opium jar in his
hand, the expression of his eyes, and the brown
stain upon one of his fingers, all marked him as
a slave to the narcotic poison. After listening a
few minutes to the preacher, he turned away with

({

288 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

an indescribable scowl of hatred upon his face,
and snarled out as he left : " You foreigners ex-
hort us to virtue ! First take away your opium,
and then talk to us about your Ya Su " (Jesus).

China is permitted to establish no national
protective tariff, but she has a national protec-
tive sentiment of inveterate hostility to every
product, be it a man, a thing, or an idea, coming
from the Western world. It hinders and hurts
every line of progress, at every point. And the
main source and feeder of this sentiment is to be
found in the opium traffic.

The modern great Chinese Wall is mainly
constructed of chests of opium.

CHAPTER X.

FOREIGN AGGRESSION.

THE great and persistent fear of the Chinese
race, since the inception of relations with the
people of America and Europe, "has been the ab-
sorption of the empire by the latter. The mat-
ter is discussed and debated in every tea-house
and place of public resort. The most ridiculous
stories and absurd statements find ready cre-
dence among the ignorant classes, whose fears
cause nothing which bears upon the question to
seem grotesque. The more intelligent and
official classes, while they discredit some of the
fairy tales in circulation, still believe such to be
the hostile if slow-moving purpose of Western
governments, and regard every demand for in-
creased facilities for trade, or enlarged inter-
course, as one step more in a path which means
destruction to China. This fear is the larger
cause of such opposition to missionary work as
is found among the natives. Whatever may be

290 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

his ostensible calling, each foreigner is, in fact, a
secret political agent. And each missionary is a
'- government spy, disguised in clerical robes and
calling.

Like people of all other races and nationali-
ties, the Chinese regard their land as the finest
upon the earth. As naturally they are convinced
that all foreigners, whatever they may profess to
the contrary, are really of this same opinion.
And, from this conviction, it is but a short step
to the other — the men of the West are bent upon
stealing China. It is only upon this ground that
they are able to explain, to their own satisfac-
tion, the wandering propensities of foreigners.
No Chinaman ever travels abroad for purposes
of pleasure, curiosity or information. Hence
why should foreigners do so? None of their
own race go abroad for business who are able to
escape starvation at home. Why, then, should
Western men seek so far and seem so eager for
trade, unless they had found in China a land
immeasurably better and richer than their own,
which they were determined to seize and hold?

There is a curious confirmation of the state-
ment that this is the working theory upon which
the Chinese explain the persistent presence of
foreigners in their land, to be found in a memo-
rial sent by the governor of Canton to the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 291

Emperor in 1834, and quoted elsewhere upon an-
other point. The governor said : " But the tea,
the raw silk, the rhubarb of the Inner Land
(China) are the sources by which the said na-
tion's people (Great Britain) live and main-
tain life." ..." Besides, all the merchants
of the said nation dare dangers, crossing the seas
myriads of miles, to come from far. Their hopes
rest wholly in the attainment of gain by buying
and selling." And in an order sent at the same
time to the British Commissioner, through Chi-
nese merchants, the governor said : " With re-
gard to the foreign factory of the company,
without the walls of the city, it is a place of tem-
porary residence for foreigners coming to Can-
ton to trade; they are permitted only to eat,
sleep, buy, and sell in the factory. They are not
allowed to go out to ramble about." Thus early
did the Chinese show their suspicion, contempt,
and fear of foreigners, and their interpretation of
the motives and purposes which took them to
the Celestial Empire.

As pointed out elsewhere, the conduct of such
Europeans as visited China in early days fur-
nished ample ground for the belief that they in-
tended to take possession of the country. The
Dutch introduced themselves to the Chinese in
A.D. 1622 by means of a fleet of seventeen men-

292 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

of-war, and proceeded to attack Macao, where
the Spaniards had already established them-
selves by force of arms. Being repulsed in this
attack, they took possession of the Pescadore
Islands, also Chinese territory, where they forced
the native occupants with brutal severity to
build them fortifications. At different times
thereafter they made descents upon Amoy, the
island of Formosa, and other points along the
coast, but eventually abandoned or were beaten
away from them all, and gave up their designs
of obtaining " a foothold for trade " in China.

The Portuguese, by similar violence, estab-
ished themselves at Ningpo as early as A.D.
1525. Their inhuman treatment of the natives
brought a tardy vengeance upon them, and in
A.D. 1545 they were driven out of that city with a
loss of eight hundred lives, thirty-five foreign
and two native vessels. They, too, attacked and
held other points for a time, but afterward aban-
doned them, finally seizing Macao, which they
still continue to hold.

Entirely aside from the inevitable feeling of
outrage and humiliation aroused in the Chinese
by the capture of Macao, and the permanent re-
tention of that peninsula, by a combination of
fraud and force, the government of Portugal has
made it a constant source of annoyance and

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 293

serious trouble to the imperial authorities. For
many years it was the centre and base of supply
of the infamous coolie traffic. When that form
of human slavery was at last stamped out of ex-
istence in 1874, its value as a source of revenue
to Portugal was gone. It had had no trade
whatever since Canton and Hong Kong, its near
neighbors, were opened to foreign commerce in
1842. After repeated efforts, made by both Por-
tugal and Spain, to reopen the coolie trade, the
former seeking revenue from the business, and
the latter needing slaves for the Cuban sugar
plantations, the attempt was abandoned, and the
Portuguese authorities opened Macao as a
gambling resort. The right to establish tables
for playing " fan tan," a game of chance forbid-
den in China, was farmed out, and the King of
Portugal derives a small but welcome annual
sum from this dilapidated and malodorous
Monte Carlo upon the coast of southern China.
It is the resort of Chinese desperadoes of every
class, and, in a small way, a base of smuggling
operations.

At the close of the " Opium War " in 1842,
the government of Great Britain exacted from
China, among other penalties, the cession of the
island of Hong Kong. It was created into the
colony of Victoria, and has remained continu-

294 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

ously since under British ownership. Lying
within rifle range of the mainland, and com-
manding the approaches by sea to Canton, then
the largest and only known port for foreign traf-
fic, it became at once of enormous value to Eng-
land. The island consists of a single peak of rock
thrust up out of deep water, and is both easily
accessible by vessels of every size, and easily de-
fended. The possession of it by Great Britain
resolved every difficulty in the way of the contra-
band trade in opium, which that government
was in truth actively fostering, and from which a
very large revenue was derived. Hong Kong
became the headquarters of the most enormous,
and infamous, smuggling fraternity known in
the history of the world. Cargoes of the drug
were landed there from Calcutta and Bombay,
thence shipped in clipper schooners to every
point upon the Chinese coast. A military and
naval station was established there, by means of
which the swift and heavy hand of British ven-
geance could be laid upon the Chinese authori-
ties, whenever they showed any persistency or
determination in their efforts to suppress the
traffic. The cession of Hong Kong made cer-
tain and unavoidable the issue of all protests and
all struggles by the imperial authorities against
the impoverishment and debauchery of their

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 295

people. And here again, to the inevitable hu-
miliation and shame felt by the "Chinese at the
loss of territory, was added rage, all the more
bitter because impotent, that the soil of the em-
pire was being used as standing ground from
which to work the ruin of the race.

The British trade returns for Hong Kong foi
the year 1897 show an estimated population of
about 247,000, more than ninety per cent, of
which is Chinese, and a total value of commerce
amounting to two hundred and fifty million dol-
lars. But these last figures would, without ex-
planation, entirely mislead the average reader.
The colony is solely a point of collection, trans-
shipment, and distribution. It produces nothing
for export, and buys only for local consumption.
Silk, tea, matting and other native exports are
brought to Hong Kong from near-by Chinese
points, and there shipped in large seagoing ves-
sels to all parts of the world. In a similar way,
cotton goods, metals, flour, opium, kerosene, and
other foreign merchandise reach Hong Kong
in deep-sea craft, and are distributed in junks,
river and coasting steamers, to different parts of
China. The trade statistics show merely the
total value of Chinese and foreign merchandise
which passed through Hong Kong in 1897.

What the island became at the outset of its

296 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

ownership by the British it has since remained —
a vast smuggling centre. After the enforced
legalization of the opium traffic in 1860, it was
more profitable to smuggle the drug than to pay
the very low import duty. And to a large ex-
tent the demand from points near Hong Kong
has continued to be supplied with opium upon
which no tax has been paid. Efforts made by
the Chinese authorities to protect the revenue
have met with no very hearty assistance at the
hands of the colonial officials. In Hong Kong,
and, theoretically, for local consumption only,
the right to refine and sell opium is farmed out
by the British authorities, at a rent of $15,500
per month. The owner of this monopoly does
an average monthly business of $40,000. Thus
he pays a tax to the British Colonial Govern-
ment of more than thirty-eight per cent, of his
gross business. Lord Charles Beresford, in
comment upon this state of facts, says : " The
opium farmer is known to be the largest smug-
gler of opium into the country. If he did not
smuggle he could not afford to pay the large
rent demanded by the British Government."
He mildly censures the Hong Kong authorities
for thus, indirectly, encouraging an illegitimate
traffic with a neighboring and friendly Power,
and adds that such a course is " in direct oppo-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 297

sition to the sentiments and traditions of the
laws of the British Empire." He does not in-
form his curious readers at what point of time,
in the history of Great Britain, the smuggling of
opium into China became opposed to any tra-
ditions or sentiments of the English people, or
rather of the British Government.

The masses of the Chinese people apparently
look with less keen disfavor upon any threat-
ened encroachments of Russia than upon the
actual or threatened aggressions of other Euro-
pean Powers. There are a variety of reasons for
this peculiar difference in sentiment. Perhaps
the most important of these is the fact that
hitherto the Russian hand has not been stretched
out to grasp any portion of strictly Chinese ter-
ritory. Port Arthur is not in China, but in Man-
churia. And any questions concerning Man-
churia do not touch the people of the empire
closely. They concern the reigning family rather
than the Chinese. And the average Chinaman
will regard with a fair amount of complacency
any disposition which the Emperor may be
coerced, or see fit to make, of what is his own
family possession. Then the Russians have been
neighbors of the Chinese upon the north and
northwest for a lengthy period of time. There
are many points of close similarity between the

298 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

people of the two races. They have long-estab-
lished trade relations. They know and under-
stand each other better. Such of the Russians
as come into direct contact with the commoner
classes of Chinese are Asiatics rather than Euro-
peans. And many of the educated Chinese, in-
cluding some high officials, have been known
to trace out and claim a relationship of blood be-
tween the ancestors of the present Czar and the
ancient emperors of China.

In addition to all this, and at least in cases
where Orientals are to be dealt with, the Russian
diplomatist is probably the best in the world. He
suits his means more carefully, and with greater
tact and discretion, to those with whom he has to
deal, as well as to the end to be attained. The
brutal aggressiveness and self-assertion of the
British is peculiarly offensive to the Chinese
statesman. He does not choose to have a man-
of-war frequently thrust into his face nor to see
daily demands formulated and placed before him.
The Russian seldom demands and never threat-
ens. He cajoles, persuades, compromises, appears
to yield, does yield for the moment, but eventu-
ally, and almost invariably, conquers the Oriental
in his own game. It can hardly be doubted that,
in case the officials and people were forced into
choice of some European government into

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 299

whose hands they must fall, they would select
Russia.

China and Jagan are, of old, rivals and
enemies. Corea, Formosa, and the Liu Chiu
Islands have, first and last, been the occasion
of much dispute and many battles between
them. Japan borrowed much from her older
and wiser neighbor in language, religion, litera-
ture, art, products of the soil, and processes
of manufacture. And, as is usual in such cases,
she despised the nation from whom she received
so much. China looked down upon the Japanese,
at times with complacent patronage, more fre-
quently with exasperated contempt and anger,
because they were so small a nation, yet lacked in
reverence, and were so hard to whip. But, under
it all, there was a certain feeling of kinship. They
were of different races, but both Oriental. And
this sentiment only served to intensify and deepen
the hatred felt by China, in more recent days, to-
ward Japan for casting aside ancient traditions
and customs, and indulging in a mad rush for
anything and everything that was modern and
Western. To Chinese eyes it was a foolish, and
almost insulting, repudiation of all that was
sacred and most desirable, and an apish imitation
of the barbarous customs and ways of the de-
spised and feared men of the West.

300 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

The war with Japan taught China some very
bitter and humiliating, but wholesome, lessons.
It demonstrated her weakness, under modern
conditions, against a people of less than one-tenth
of her population. It furnished an object lesson
of what American or European powers might be
able to do, if the time came when any one of them
should see fit to enforce their demands with the
sword. It did not prove all this to the masses of
the people, but to political leaders and the more
intelligent. After the first outburst of anger
over defeat was passed, there came a certain feel-
ing of respect for the Japanese, and, possibly, a
revival to a slight degree of the old feeling of
kinship. Some of the highest and most influen-
tial of Chinese officials recognized a greater dan-
ger to the empire in the near future than any
likely to come from Japan. More than one me-
morial was submitted to the Throne, urging close
alliance with the Japanese in order to make com-
mon cause with them against a common foe, and
the reorganization of the Chinese army and navy
under the supervision and advice of the Japanese.
To-day the government of China is far more con-
tent with Formosa in the hands of Japan than it
would be were that island under the control of
any European power.

For many years the government of France has

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 301

been exploiting schemes of political aggrandize-
ment in Siam, Tonquin, and upon the southern
frontier of China. Having absorbed the more
valuable portions of the two countries named, a
" sphere of interest " in that part of China near-
est has been claimed. And it is believed by many
of the more intelligent Chinese officials that the
troubles fomented in those parts of China by
priests have a definite connection with French de-
signs upon the entire line of Chinese southern
frontier provinces. It is known to all the world
that France stands prepared to demand that area
as its share of the plunder, in case of the partition
of the empire. A long series of impertinent,
vexatious, and inconsistent demands, in connec-
tion and line with this ulterior purpose, have been
argued and pushed with the authorities at Pe-
king, to the extent, upon one occasion, of actual
war.

It is impossible not to sympathize with the ex-
asperation and intense anger felt by the Chinese
Government at this policy of greed and eagerness
to administer upon the effects of a nation neither
dead nor moribund. No possible arguments can
be cited to justify the course of France, except
such as sanction the deeds of the highwayman
and burglar. She has neither present nor pros-
pective Chinese trade to foster and develop.

3Q2 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

French merchants in France, there are none in
China, take less than eighteen per cent, of the
raw silk exported from China, and nothing else
worthy of mention. France sells nothing to the
Chinese, nor is she likely to be able to do so in
the future. Aside from a highly subsidized mail
steamship line, there is no discoverable French
commercial marine, in or near Chinese waters.
The outcome of all her plans, if successful, would
be the levy of a tax, for the benefit of her govern-
ment, upon an international commerce with which
she had no part and no natural connection.
There are selfish reasons which may serve to jus-
tify the course of Great Britain and Germany in
certain lines of action in China. But none of
these have any application to France.

There is ample proof that the French are the
least natural colonists in the world. If they were
the best, there is no room for them in the already
overcrowded provinces of Southern China. And
they cannot live in the pestiferous climate of the
regions, already seized, south of the Chinese Em-
pire. It has also been proved that the French
have no natural fitness nor ability for the man-
agement of alien races. They do little or nothing
for their improvement and elevation. The
Frenchman is a posturist, but not a reformer.
The various French concessions, or areas of terri-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 303

tory at the various open ports of China in which
the authorities of France have full sway, are sim-
ply the hotbeds for the propagation of every form
of native and foreign vice. They are not the
centres of French trade, for there is none. They
are simply hideous and disgusting cancerous
growths upon humanity.

In point of fact, the Chinese find no points of
contact with the French, and have no need of
them. If the French diplomatic and consular es-
tablishments were withdrawn from China, the
only noticeable effect would be the immediate
quieting of some political waters which now are
greatly troubled and disturbed. The Chinese
have manifestly no taste for French products,
since in sixty years no trade has been developed.
There is nothing in the hysterical, semi-military
and pseudo-republican form of government at
present in vogue in France which can prove in
the least degree attractive to the Chinese. There
is no demand for French manners, since there is
much more of grace and repose in Chinese cour-
tesy and etiquette than is to be found in the far-
famed, and somewhat gymnastic, Parisian sys-
tem. Nor is China in the least likely to appre-
ciate and adopt the peculiarly French practice of
innocuous dueling.

Germany has come more recently within the

3o4 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

range of the watchful and suspicious gaze of the
Chinese. Considering the caution and reserve
which are so pre-eminently characteristic of the
Chinese, she gained a considerable prestige with
great rapidity, and might have pushed her com-
mercial interests to an almost unlimited extent,
and largely at the expense of British merchants,
if she had been content to avoid all schemes of
territorial conquest. She would then have stood
in bold relief, and high in the favor and confi-
dence of the government at Peking, as the one
great European Power which sought only mutual
benefits, had no designs upon the integrity of the
empire, but was prepared to render the same
scrupulous respect for the rights of others which
she exacted for her own. She was handicapped
with no weight of ancient grudges or suspicions.
Her successes would have been all the greater, as
she showed herself to be the one nation in all
Europe worthy of trust. All this is not so much
morality as simple common-sense.

But the seizure of Kiao Chow in the province
of Shantung destroyed both prestige and oppor-
tunity. By that act, Germany placed herself, in
the minds of the Chinese, in the black list of
treacherous and ravening European wolves, hun-
gry to tear in pieces and devour their patrimony.
The nominal " lease " of the area for a long

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 305

term of years deceived no one. That it was
taken in reparation for the murder of two mis-
sionaries was instantly recognized as a very
flimsy pretext. Even Great Britain had never
demanded territory in exchange for missionary
blood, but only in case of interference with its
sales of opium.

The entire wretched theory of the maintenance
of a balance of power, or a parity of influence, is
rightly regarded by the Chinese as of a piece with
the rest, a graduated process of spoliation. The
practical operation of the idea is seen in recent
events. At the close of the Japanese war, Russia,
Germany, and France warned Japan away from
Port Arthur and Manchuria. Russia, shortly
thereafter, took Port Arthur herself, and thus be-
gan the operation of gorging Manchuria. As
Russia had received a mouthful, Germany must
have something, and the opportune murder of
two missionaries furnished the excuse for taking
Kiao Chow. As Russia and Germany had each
selected a portion, the hunger of Great Britain
must be appeased and she absorbed Wei Hai Wei,
thus placing herself midway between the other
two. Then, as Russia, Germany, and Great Brit-
ain had each been fed, France temporarily satisfied
her appetite with sundry' small mouthfuls down
in her southern corner. Italy said that she too

3o6 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

had a stomach, and selected her piece, but the
other Powers named evidently thought that she
had best not disturb the Chinese. Where do na-
tional honor, dignity, or self-respect have place
or play in such an indecent scramble for spoil and
plunder as this? And yet there were those who
suggested that the United States should " take
some."

When, by the treaties with China, certain ports
were opened to foreign commerce, limited areas
of land were assigned at each to the different
Powers making the treaties, within which their
people might reside and transact their business.
These areas have come to be called the Foreign
Concessions. At Shanghai, for example, there is
what is known as the American Concession, the
British Concession, and the French Concession.
In making these allotments, the Chinese Govern-
ment did not surrender its rights of sovereignty
over the territory, nor was any such surrender
asked or understood by the foreign authorities
interested. The arrangement was made for mu-
tual convenience. The foreigners naturally pre-
ferred, for social and other purposes, to live by
themselves. As these same treaties gave the Chi-
nese no jurisdiction over the foreigners, but
guarded the latter by placing them still subject
and accountable to the officials and laws of their

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 307

own lands, it was better, from every point of
view, that they should be segregated from the
masses of the Chinese. They could be more
readily protected and governed by their own au-
thorities. Upon its part, China preferred not to
have, scattered promiscuously about, in the midst
of its own subjects, a mass of foreigners, of all
sorts and nationalities, over whom it could exer-
cise no control.

The arrangement has, upon the whole, worked
admirably. And it must be said, to the great
honor and credit of the British authorities, that
their concessions, at every Chinese port, are
models of order, good government, and, so far
as the circumstances and surroundings will per-
mit, cleanliness and every sanitary requirement.
No restrictions are enforced against foreigners
of other than British nationality, nor against the
Chinese. They are really cosmopolitan, and the
larger ones include landowners of many different
nationalities. The British Concession at Shang-
hai, in particular, is in reality a sort of model re-
public, and furnishes an invaluable object lesson,
in "every characteristic of a well-regulated and
self-governing community, to the millions of Chi-
nese who visit it from every part of the empire.
What the French concessions, in general, are has
already been described.

3o8 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

But this mutually desirable and convenient ad-
justment has been made the source of continuous
aggression and encroachments upon Chinese
rights and prerogatives, mainly by the French.
In Peking, when the various legations were estab-
lished there in 1860, the imperial authorities
kindly assisted the French Minister in his search
for suitable quarters, and finally turned over to
him a piece of government property, in the shape
of the palace of a prince, under a perpetual lease
and at the nominal rental of one thousand Mexi-
can dollars annually. The property was worth
many times that sum as rent. After two years
the French ceased to make any payments, and
claimed the premises by right of ownership. And
this peculiar conduct was, by the way, the other
" question " upon which the Prime Minister,
Wen Hsiang, desired to consult the writer, as
mentioned in the chapter upon " Opium."

In a somewhat similar spirit and manner, the
French authorities at the several ports have grad-
ually assumed full sovereignty and ownership of
the French concessions, claiming them openly as
" a portion of the soil of France." There is no
word in theT treaties to justify any such assump-
tion, and the only right of ownership which the
French can have in their concessions is the right
* which the thief may have to stolen property.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 309

While they are thus claiming rights which are not
theirs, and demonstrating their unfitness and in-
capacity to govern communities in which more
than ninety-five per cent, of the population is Chi-
nese, and French residents are conspicuous by
their absence — in other words, while they are
furnishing abundant proof that they are not
entitled to have concessions at the open ports^
they are continually harassing and vexing the
Chinese authorities with all sorts of demands and,
importunities. In 1897, the French Consul-Gen- \
eral at Shanghai demanded a large increase in the [
area of his concession. The plot of ground for
which he asked, and upon which he wished,
among other things, to construct a slaughter-
house, contained a burial-ground upon which
were thousands of graves of all ages. There
was also a temple upon the premises. He not
only proposed to desecrate this spot, the most
sacred of all in the eyes of the Chinese, but he
modestly demanded that all bodies and old coffins
should be removed at the expense of the sur-
viving relatives.

The Chinese Government was coerced into
yielding to this demand. But when, upon the
1 6th of July, 1898, a large body of armed French
men-of-wars men were landed to destroy the tem-
ple and take possession of the ground, they were

3io REAL CHINESE QUESTION

attacked by a mob. In the battle which ensued,
seventeen Chinamen were killed and twenty-six
wounded. But the temper of the people was so
excited and hostile, that proceedings for the
French occupancy of the area were temporarily
abandoned.

The next step in the progress of the Consul-
General was in the nature of a demand for com-
pensation for the riot, and that he be put into
quiet possession of the conceded ground. In De-
cember, 1898, he proposed, in a great spirit of
conciliation, that, in lieu of the pecuniary com-
pensation previously demanded, an additional
concession of land be made to France. He asked
for the entire river frontage of the Chinese cityjof
Shanghai. Upon this is a~line~~granTte wharf,
newly built, and extensive stores and warehouses
equal to those found in any American seaport, all
in excellent order, lighted by electricity, and doing
an enormous business. If all this property, to-
gether with another large block of land upon the
other side of the Chinese city, were surrendered,
in place of pecuniary compensation for the riot,
and the temple and burial-ground were added to
the concession, the honor of France would be sat-
isfied, and there would be no more trouble.

Another scheme in connection with these for-
eign areas at the open ports has been more than

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 311

once successfully exploited at the expense of
the Chinese Government, costing much money,
as well as producing serious ill-feeling. For-
eign residents within the concessions have fre-
quently bought land outside of them from the
natives, and erected extensive buildings thereon
for various business purposes. There is no
treaty right to do this, but the Chinese authorities
have good-naturedly permitted it. In such and
all other land purchases in China, formal and
duly recorded deeds are given, exactly as is the
custom in the United States. With this fact
kept in mind, the peculiar variety of spoliation
about to be described will be readily understood.

Imagine a treaty port at which there are but
two concessions, a British and a French. A half
dozen British subjects have bought extensive
tracts of land along a river front, outside either
concession, and have erected wharves, ware-
houses, and other buildings upon this land. They
are doing a large and profitable business. Such
being the condition of affairs, the German author-
ities demand a concession at this port, and they
select for this purpose an area which includes all
the property of these British merchants. Evil-
minded persons have been known to say that they
are the more likely to select ground because it
encloses such foreign-owned property. After

312 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

the usual delays, references, and objections, the
German demand is granted, the ground marked
out, boundary stones set, and the consul hoists
his flag over the new concession.

One of the first steps taken by the governor of
this miniature state is to order the British mer-
chants mentioned above to remove their property
from the new German area. If they refuse, they
are ejected by force. If they demand compensa-
tion, it is denied them upon the ground that their
title is invalid since the treaty does not authorize
foreign ownership of land outside of the conces-
sion limits. The British owners are eventually
ousted from their property and business, which
is practically confiscated to the benefit of the Ger-
man Government. Then comes the final act in
this travesty upon justice and decency. The
Briton appeals to his government, submits elab-
orate schedules of property lost, value of busi-
ness, estimated present and prospective profits,
interest upon investment, value of good will, and
every other imaginable, and sometimes unim-
aginable, demand, and payment in full is exacted
from the Chinese authorities.

Lord Charles BeresTord, referring to this
scheme of robbery by diplomatic methods, says:
" This is a cowardly and unchivalrous practice,
which has been resorted to lately, under similar

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 313

circumstances, by all foreign countries (Euro-
pean) with regard to China. China being pros-
trate, one European power, at the point of the
bayonet, demands concessions which China has
neither the right to give nor the power to refuse.
Immediately, another European power, at the
point of the bayonet, compels China to pay heavy
compensation for acceding to demands which she
had no means to resist."

It is distressing to be obliged to recount such
acts of trickery and extortion practised upon a
helpless victim by great powers which arrogate
to themselves the position of leaders in modern
Christianity and civilization. The recital re-
minds one rather of the practices of a card-
sharper and his confederate, than of that broad-
minded statesmanship which deserves respect and
honor, and which all men everywhere have the
right to expect from governments which make
such high pretensions. One conclusion is inevita-
ble. If the Chinese are human beings; if they
are influenced and led by the same motives and
feelings as the men of all other races ; if they are
able to distinguish between those who hurt and
those who help them ; if they know a friend when
they see him, and an enemy when he comes within
reach of their anger; if they have any power of
discrimination in these directions, then all such

314 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

acts of trickery and violence, aggression and en-
croachment are not only immoral, indecent, and
unworthy of any so-called Christian government,
but they are the worst possible business policy.

It is not necessary to be a censor of morals in
order to condemn such acts. They may and must
be denounced from the plain foundation of com-
mon-sense. They are not only unbusinesslike,
they are necessarily destructive of all business re-
lations. The highwayman is well aware that he
must keep his grip close upon the throat of his
victim until his operations are concluded. Yet
here are to be seen the Great Powers of the earth
squabbling among themselves for influence and
prestige with China, then, by turns, choking her,
holding a revolver at her head or a knife to her
heart, and lecturing her upon the inestimable
benefits to be derived from Western civilization,
and all the time wondering why China hates the
foreigner so bitterly, and why it is so increasingly
difficult to make any money out of her. Of what
impossible stuff do they imagine the Chinaman
to be formed !

His tricks and evasions, his delays and hin-
drances are partly Oriental, and hence natural.
But they are continually brought into use and de-
veloped to their utmost extent, because he believes
that he is forced into relations with those who are,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 315

in fact, his deadly enemies, and are determined
upon the destruction of his empire. It is as idle
to talk friendship to-day and use force to-morrow
with him as it would be with an Anglo-Saxon.
He is not a child to accept and quickly forget a
whipping, nor a dog whose love will increase the
more, the more he is beaten.

With unimportant differences, with greater
habit and capacity for the concealment of his
preferences and dislikes, the Chinaman is exactly
the same sort of man as the American or English-
man would be under like circumstances and con-
ditions. And the hundreds of millions of the
race hate and fear all " men from the West " ex-
actly as, and for the same reasons that, would
cause us to hate the Chinese were the situation
reversed. Only they bear their real and fancied
wrongs with greater patience and quietness than
we should. Many of their wrongs are, in fact,
imaginary. But they are none the less real to
them.

Before any person passes sweeping condemna-
tion upon the Chinese, he ought, if he chooses to
be fair and just, to apply that wise advice: " Put
yourself in his place."

CHAPTER XL

THE PARTITION OF CHINA.

NOT to go back into the times of Yao and Shun
and misty tradition, China has been governed by
two foreign dynasties, during the four thousand
years of its more accurate history. There have
been twenty-six different reigning families, of
which twenty-four were Chinese. Of the two
exceptions, the first was Mongol, and it governed
the empire for a period of eighty-eight years,
from A.D. 1280 to A.D. 1368. And the second
was the present Manchu dynasty, which has been
in power since A.D. 1643.

Those two Mongol warriors, famous in history,
Genghis Khan, and his grandson Kublai Khan,
who swept over Asia, devastated parts of Europe,
and frightened all Christendom — these two men
were the founders of the Mongol dynasty in
China. Some of the northern tier of provinces
had previously been under Tartar domination
for a considerable period of time, but no large

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 317

portion of the empire had been subjected to non-
Chinese rule.

The first of these men was pre-eminently a
fighter, and did little to consolidate his authority
over any region conquered by his arms. But
some of his successors were humane and wise
rulers. Of one of them, a Chinese contemporary
writer says : " He was distinguished by a rare
disinterestedness. . . . Wise and calculating in
his plans, he did little of which he had any reason
to repent." Kublai Khan caused the famous
Grand Canal, and other works of great public
utility, to be constructed, and won the good opin-
ion of his Chinese subjects by the moderation and
justice of his rule, and, especially, by his refusal
to disturb existing arrangements for the conduct
of public affairs. And it is worthy of notice, as
bearing upon the subject of this chapter, that just
so soon as the Mongol rulers abandoned the an-
cient Chinese civil service rules, and appointed
men to office without regard to their literary
qualifications, or filled positions with Mongol
favorites, the doom of their rule was sounded.
The natives of the empire cared comparatively
little by whom the empty titular honor of sov-
ereign was held. But they were determined that
the actual government of China should remain
in the hands of Chinese.

3i8 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

The Manchu dynasty has furnished several
wise, energetic, and just monarchs. During their
reigns, there was much vigor in the administra-
tion of affairs, and but little favoritism and in-
trigue. A far better authority than the writer
of these pages, speaking fifty years ago, said :
" The Manchu sway has well developed the in-
dustry and resources of the country, of which the
population, loyalty, and content of the people are
the best evidences." Beyond a question, the
secret of the success and long-continued rule of
the present Imperial Family is to be found in
their scrupulous adherence to the Chinese system
and practice of government. The Manchus have
succeeded, and remained in nominal author-
ity, simply because they have allowed the Chinese
to rule themselves.

Much complaint is made of a species of nar-
cotism, exhibited in the more recent rulers of this
dynasty, and characterized by lack of energy and
lax administration, listlessness, indifference, and
general failure of virility. None complain more
loudly than the Power which volunteered, in-
deed forced its aid, in bringing about this con-
dition of impoverishment, debauchery, and con-
sequent decay of vitality. And what greater ef-
ficiency of control could be expected, when a large

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 319

percentage, rising above fifty, of the immediate
male members of the Imperial blood, are victims
of the opium habit? What better could be ex-
pected, when the official and educated classes are
honeycombed with the same vice, a vice synony-
mous with incompetency and dishonesty?

The best Chinese authorities place the origin
of the race in the great valley of the Yangtze
River, and near the present centre of the
" Eighteen Provinces." They are not the aborig-
inal inhabitants of that portion of Asia, at least
so far as certain areas within the empire are con-
cerned. Remnants of an earlier race or tribe
still exist, and bear the same relation to the Chi-
nese that the North American Indian sustains to
the citizens of the United States. The Chinese
probably originated in the region named, and,
growing rapidly in numbers, spread throughout
the country which they now occupy, crowding
out, or submerging, weaker specimens of the
human stock. There is not a syllable to be found,
either in their history or earliest traditions, which
indicates that they were, originally, migrants
from any other part of the earth. Nor do the
books of record of other branches of the family of
man furnish a suggestion that the Chinese race
had its birthplace elsewhere. In the days when

320 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

races were born, they came into existence where
they now are, and there they have remained, con-
tinuously, since.

There is no foundation for a theory that the
Chinese is a compound, or mixed race, the prod-
uct obtained by mingling several different strains
of blood. " Neither their history nor tradition in-
dicates anything of the sort. If such a process
has taken place, of which the Chinaman is the
result, it must have occurred in the very earliest
ages of humanity. For, not only do their records
fail to show any evidence of it, but their history
and customs, the latter unchanged for nearly
forty centuries, furnish proof that active precau-
tions were taken against it.

The modern practice of the Chinese in this re-
gard is striking, and may be relied upon as being
in line with the traditional and uniform policy of
the race. There are no indications of intermar-
riage between the Mongols and the natives dur-
ing the years when the former governed China.
The Manchus have ruled the empire for rather
more than three hundred and fifty years. A
large Manchu population is found in and near
Peking, and in other portions of the land. These
have lost their original home, language, customs,
and habits, having, in all these regards, been ab-
sorbed by the Chinese, the stronger, more highly

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 321

civilized race. Yet such a relation between the
two as intermarriage, or interconnection, is quite
unknown. Each marries within his own race,
and there are no hybrid children.

The millions of Mohammedans found through-
out Northern and Western China are the de-
scendants of ancestors who removed thither from
Persia and Turkestan centuries ago. They have
become, to all appearance, Chinese in every re-
gard, excepting their religion. They associate
with the natives, live among them, have extensive
business relations with them, but they never inter-
marry. The little village of Jews in the heart of
the empire, where they have been since the dis-
persion of the Tribes, is losing in numbers by
reason of too close intermarriage. But no rela-
tions of that nature have, even a single instance,
been established between them and the surround-
ing Chinese.

It may appear to be a startling statement, but it
is quite possible that, in all history, there has not
been so great a total adulteration of Chinese
blood as is now to be seen in those unfortunate
illegitimate Eurasians — children of American or
European fathers and native mothers — who can
be counted by the thousands in the ports of China
where foreigners reside. Be this as it may, it is
certain that no admixture of alien blood, suffi-

322 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

cient to produce any perceptible effect upon the
race, has ever occurred. The Chinese is a pure,
original type of human kind. As such they are
' unique and unexampled, both as regards the long
stretch of their history and the greatness of their
numbers. No more interesting subject can be
found for the student of ethnology.

Latterly much has been written of the Chinese
as an accidental combination of alien and diverse
tribes, clans, and races, without a common iden-
tity, or any uniformity of traits and character-
istics. Nothing could be further from the truth.
And all such statements are little better than the
creation of imaginary facts, with which to con-
firm some preconceived theory.

The Chinese are a marked race, absolute in
their uniformity and identity of character. No
matter how disguised by dress, language, or as-
sociation, individual specimens can be readily
picked out, even by the inexpert, no matter to
what corner of the earth they may have roamed.
And, excepting, possibly, by slight and superficial
peculiarities, an expert in knowledge of the race
will be unable to determine from what portion of
the empire any Chinaman may have come. There
are no tribal marks, because there are no tribes.
And there are no clans, within the broad meaning
commonly given to that word. As explained

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 323

elsewhere, small conbinations of men, either bear-
ing the same name, or residents of the same lo-
cality, are frequently formed, temporarily, for the
accomplishment of some specified purpose. That
purpose accomplished or defeated, the combina-
tion ends, and the so-called " clan " exists no
longer.

Much is made by those who hope or fear to
see, in this imaginary lack of racial unity, a ready
excuse for the disintegration of the empire —
much is made by such of the frequently recur-
ring feuds and quarrels between inhabitants of
neighboring villages or districts, over the posses-
sion of a well, a bit of land, or some other trivial
matter. But these disputes serve to prove the
identity, not the diversity, of those concerned in
them. And these Chinese neighborhood squab-
bles must not be taken too seriously. They are
the natural outgrowth of great poverty, and of
pettiness and irascibility of temper. Every
breeze is not a cyclone. And only a morbidly
nervous person can mistake the results of the sud-
den down-sitting of a stout man for an earth-
quake. These quarrels shake a neighborhood
or district at times, but they prove nothing, indi-
cate nothing, beyond local bad temper. They do
not mark out lines of cleavage of the empire any
more than a brilliant writer upon things Chinese

324 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

defines a racial peculiarity, when he mentions the
capacity of the natives " to go to sleep across
three wheelbarrows, with heads downward like
a spider, their mouths wide open, and a fly in-
side."

Much undue importance is also given to local
differences of dialect among the Chinese. These
do not affect the construction, or idiom, of the
language in any degree, but merely the pronun-
ciation. Throughout four-fifths of the empire,
these provincialisms of speech or sound, as they
may be called, are not greater than those to be
found in every European country. They are less
serious than those met with in England, and are
in no sense a hindrance to communication.

The excepted one-fifth consists of a strip of
seaboard territory which extends from a point a
little to the north of Shanghai, down to the south-
ern boundary line. Measured back from the
coast, it varies in depth from fifty to one hundred
and fifty miles. Within this area, dialectic dif-
ferences are great, of frequent occurrence, and as
clean cut in their outline as the sharpest line of
distinction between a cloud and the clear sky.
Pronunciations do not shade imperceptibly from
one into another, but a radical change occurs at
once. Even here, the local differences of speech
are not enormously greater than those which may

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 325

be found elsewhere. It is practically impossible
for many of the less educated Yorkshiremen to
carry on an intelligent conversation with a cock-
ney, or with a resident of the south of England,
excepting by means of an interpreter. Yet no
one has suggested that a process of disintegra-
tion was going on there, or that Yorkshire might
easily drop away from the remainder of the
island.

The inhabitants of this region of strongly
marked dialects are unequivocally and most in-
tensely Chinese in every characteristic. And
there are no peculiarities of speech there or else-
where in China but would disappear within two
or three generations, with cheap and easy means
of communication with those beyond them. One
simply sees in China what he finds everywhere
else. In regions remote, or shut out from main
lines of travel, or inhabited by those who have not,
for any reason, come into contact and acquaint-
ance with those of other parts, localisms of every
sort, of language, of dress, of customs and ways,
are inevitable. But these are not proofs of any
radical differences or peculiarities. They indi-
cate nothing more than the need of that valuable
friction which comes with varied and frequent
intercourse. And they easily disappear under
changed conditions.

326 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

The geography of China furnishes no natural
lines of demarcation between different portions
of the empire. Like the United States, it is
symmetrically shaped, compact, well rounded,
and intended to be the home of one nation for all
time. The centres of its wealth, industries, and
population are substantially identical with each
other, and with the centre of its area. One great
river, fed from the snows of the Himalaya Moun-
tains, pours a wonderful flood through the heart
of the empire, furnishing more than two thou-
sand miles of waterway, and, with its tributaries,
serves as the great artery of traffic and communi-
cation. By means of it, huge ocean-going steam-
ships may load their cargoes eight hundred miles
inland, and discharge them at the docks in New
York or London.

Little territory of value lies adjacent to China,
either to tempt her ambition or to serve as a base
of attack by others upon her. Upon the west
are limitless deserts of sand; upon the north are
the scarcely less inhospitable steppes of Mongolm.
To the southwest, the impassable Himalayas at
once shut her in and protect her against all ap-
proach, while to the south the horrible jungles
and fever-loaded swamps of Burmah and Siam
furnish a stronger barrier and defence than any
number of armed men. China can only be ap-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 327

preached by way of the sea. And one-half the
circumference of the earth has, until recently,
stretched between the empire and any recognized
military power.

The hill and mountain ranges, by which the
surface of the country is much broken, serve less
as walls of division than as guides, or chutes, by
means of which the great bulk of commerce and
intercourse is directed into the bosom of the em-
pire, the valley of the Yangtze River. Placed as
they are, they are ribs of strength. They rein-
force and stiffen the natural cohesion of the race
and nation.

It must not be supposed, from what has been
said, that little or no intercommunication takes
place between the different, and even most remote,
parts of the empire. Upon the contrary, all
China is one great hive of commerce. Every
part is reached from every other part. It is no
more true in France that all commodities find
their way to Paris than in China that the prod-
ucts of every district are carried to Peking. The
whole business is done under the most antiquated,
cumbersome, and expensive methods, and with an
enormous waste of time. But it is done. The
inns, everywhere, are full of business travellers.
The^ rivers and canals are crowded with cargo-
carrying craft of every description, and bound in

328 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

every direction. The roads and mountain-passes
are clamorous with the shouts and calls of drivers
of camels, drivers of horses, mules and donkeys,
and with porters of every age and both sexes, all
loaded to the extreme limit of endurance with
every namable class or description of goods,
bound for a market. There are native banks of
exchange in every city of size, by means of which
money may be safely remitted to any part of
China, however remote. In addition to the
government service of couriers, there are postal
and express companies which transmit letters and
parcels everywhere. As time is never an object
of importance with the Chinese, only a lack of
promptness will be guaranteed, but of safety
there is good assurance. And the responsibility
of such companies is more invariably enforced
than in some Western lands.

As the final government examinations are held
at Peking, and as the civil service rules forbid the
appointment of any official to duty in his native
province, there is a large and constant amount of,
what may be called, official travel. And there is

*^-| — i -^^

a very considerable stirring up and kneading of
communities continually going on everywhere
within the empire, as an effect of these two regu-
lations. Northern men fill the southern offices,
and southern men the northern. Eastern men

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 329

carry their ideas into Western posts of duty, and
Western men make use of theirs in the East. And
students, prospective prime ministers, are found
upon all the highways, at nearly all times, carry-
ing their local views and theories to the capital,
and taking back the latest and most approved
metropolitan fashion of dress, thought, or speech,
to their native villages. While these processes
may not result in much transfusion of modern
knowledge, or Western forms of civilization, into
the native body, they can hardly fail to make it
uniformly and evenly Chinese.

Is not the Chinaman exactly the type of hu-
manity which such conditions as those specified
might be expected to produce? An original race,
unmodified and unstrengthened during thousands
ofyears, by the introduction of any other strains
of blood, segregated from all of the growing por-
tion of humanity during the later centuries, and
left to act and react upon itself! Given such a
history, and the results might safely be antici-
pated. The native vigor and intellectuality of ^
the race — shown in a thousand facts in their his-
tory— are not essentially impaired, but have been
retained, with the purity of their blood. But
with these are found, what might be looked for,
great intensity and fixedness of every peculiar
trait and characteristic; great conceit and pride

330 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

of race ; a lack of perspective and of true discrimi-
nation, showing itself in an enormous range of
unimportant details, in the minor affairs of life,
filling up the time and wasting the energies; in-
different and contemptuous regard for the rest of
humanity ; and entire satisfaction with their own
ideas, forms, and theories.

The intense personality and fixedness of type
are the natural results of long-continued inbreed-
ing. The Chinese are unlike any other race, be-
cause the blood of no other flows in their veins.
They are lacking in the faculty of true discrim-
ination, because they have long been deprived of
all opportunity to compare and contrast them-
selves with equals or superiors. They are un-
ready to learn, because for centuries they have
been in contact with none who could teach them.
They possess all the characteristics of a well-bred,
but too closely bred, race. With great capacities,
they have been shut in upon themselves. Hence,
such sharp contrasts as are found among the Chi-
nese. Coupled, in the same person, with fine
mental ability, is the intense vanity of utter igno-
rance. The man has been made blind by long-
continued gazing upon himself. He is a bundle
of over-developed, wrongly developed, and un-
developed faculties. But he is neither weak nor
decadent.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 331

Such as he is, he is the problem of the present
age. This Oriental Rip Van Winkle, at once old
and young, has been roused from his sleep,
dragged, unconsenting, from his seclusion, and
made to face a strange, new world. He stands
confronting it, an immense, compact race, a race
so completely unified, that any individual of it
may be taken as a fair specimen of four hundred
millions. The experiences of his few waking
days — for sixty years are but a few days in the
age of a race — have been decidedly unpleasant,
and, as reckoned by him, promise little for the
future. Hence he stands, drawn within himself,
unyielding and unfriendly.

And the world has not decided what to do
with him. Leaving other propositions out of
sight, there are those who advise that China be
cut up, dismembered, and divided among certain
European Powers, the authors of the suggestion
to receive, of course, a liberal share in the divi-
sion.

It is hardly necessary to comment, in any
serious way, upon the arguments advanced in
favor of such a line of action. However plausi-
ble they may appear at first glance, they are false
and unsound, containing not enough of the sub-
stance of reason to disguise, or conceal, the real
motive which underlies them all. Put strongly,

332 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

that motive is simply plunder. Stated in the
most charitable language obtainable, it is still al-
together selfish. " What is best for China " is
not the question, practically at issue, with any of
the advocates of partition, but rather " What
will be the best for us in China." The most
Pharisaical of all the European governments is
anxious to see a well-organized, but small, army
maintained by the Chinese Government. Why?
In order that it may serve as an efficient police
force for the protection of British merchants and
British trade. The same government is, pro-
fessedly, hostile to the dismemberment theory,
just at present. Why ? Because it is well aware
that the volume of its trade, in an undivided
China, is greater than it would be in China par-
titioned, even including the commerce which it
could control in the large area which it would ap-
propriate in the event of partition. And, while
professedly opposed to the policy of division, it
has taken good care to outline the richest part of
the empire, and to warn other Powers away from
it, as the exclusive property of Great Britain, in
case such a policy prevails.

Thus it is, that the entire question of the con-
tinued existence of the Chinese nation is to be
decided, not in accordance with what will be best
for it, but what will best satisfy the ambition,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 333

greed of domination, and money lust of Great
Britain, Russia, France, and Germany. The four
great vultures roost there now, three of them
upon the northeast coast, watching the victim and
each other, by turns, while the fourth is ready and
hungry for its prey, upon the southern frontier.
The truth is, that China is the greatest find in all
history, for the hunters after plunder. And
while the world has advanced in many directions,
in the point of international morality and chival-
rous regard for the rights of the weak, it still re-
mains disgracefully near where it stood in the
days of the German barons, the Norse pirates,
and the Jew-teeth-extracting robber Knights of
England.

It is not intended to ignore or make light of
the many just and serious complaints against the
Chinese administration of affairs. The occa-
sions which give rise to them are of constant re-
currence, and the point has been reached where
they cannot longer be endured. No nation may,
wisely, be allowed to play fast and loose with its
most solemn obligations, or to trifle with the lives
and property of aliens who are within its terri-
tory under pledges of protection. It makes little
practical difference whether the government, in
its own personality, is the wrongdoer, or whether,
by laxity and failure of justice, it permits wrong-

334 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

doing. The responsibility is the same. And
China must be held to a strict account for every
wrong done or permitted, every promise broken.
But let it be kept in mind that this is due to China,
not less than from her.

Admitting, however, all that is claimed in re-
gard to acute conditions of disorder in the
empire; the inefficiency and corruption of of-
ficials; the insecurity of life and property; and
the apparent impossibility of securing any valua-
ble reforms under existing conditions, it still
remains true that the dismemberment of China
is not only unjustifiable, in view of all the facts,
but is, not more for the Chinese than for the for-
eign Powers concerned, an unwise and unsafe
remedy. Simpler, more natural, and far less
drastic measures lie close at hand and plainly in
sight. There can be no doubt of their full effi-
cacy, if once fairly tried.

Suppose, for example, that the six great Pow-
ers most in evidence in Chinese affairs — the four
already named, with the addition of the United
States and Japan — suppose that these Powers
agree upon a just, generous, and firm policy or
line of action toward China, and make an honest
trial of it for a term of years. They will then
be in position to determine whether moderation
and fair treatment are appreciated by, or wasted

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 335

upon, the Chinese. No such policy has been
tested in the past. There have been sporadic
cases of joint action. But these have been chiefly
remarkable by a nominal concert and a practical
false play. And it is a fact not sufficiently well
known, and to which sufficient weight is not
given, that, since 1860, no demand, unitedly made
and moderately pressed by the great Powers
named, has failed of success.

For forty years the Chinese Government has
been pulled this way and crowded that. It has
been bullied, threatened, fawned upon, and ca-
joled by turns. Privileges and concessions de-
manded by one European Power have been openly
or secretly opposed by another. If eventually
granted, under threat or other pressure, then an
equivalent, or compensation of some sort, must
be provided for others. To yield to one has re-
sulted in securing the enmity of his rival. Secret,
unasked, and questionable advice has been be-
stowed upon the heads of the ministers of the
Foreign Office until they were dazed and stupe-
fied. Is it to be wondered at if, in such a pres-
sure of conflicting interests and rival demands,
in such an unseemly pushing and crowding from
and toward every direction, the Chinese authori-
ties, dreading to do this, and afraid to do that,
not knowing what to do, should end in doing

336 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

nothing? Is it strange if, in their shrewdness
and timidity, they have sought to play off one
Power against another, to allow these rival forces
to counterbalance themselves? Where and when
in all this ruck and scramble, especially of the last
twenty years, has China had either fair play or a
sufficient opportunity to justify herself before the
world ?

Ample evidence has already been given in these
pages to prove that, however unfavorable the
description, given in the preceding paragraph, of
European policy in China may appear, it is more
than sustained by the facts. Two or three
quotations, taken exclusively from British au-
thorities, may fitly be added here as cumulative
testimony.

Lord Charles Beresford, in " The Break Up of
China," reports the Chinese officials at Tientsin
as follows : " They said that Russia insisted on
China giving concessions which she was helpless
to refuse, and that Great Britain immediately
demanded why such concessions were given, and
either made China pay heavily or give an equiva-
lent, which China was equally helpless to refuse."
As an unintentional illustration of this complaint,
he says, speaking of certain events at Chefoo :
" The Chinese were induced to sell the foreshore
(which belonged to them) to a Russian Com-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 337

pany. Instead of arguing out the point in a
friendly manner with the Russian Government,
the British Government insisted on the Chinese
paying 30,000 taels (over $20,000) for granting
a concession, which, owing to their weakness,
they were powerless to refuse." That is to say,
blackmail, to the amount of more than $20,000,
was levied by Great Britain upon China, be-
cause the latter had disposed of a piece of its
own property as it saw fit and had the right
to do!

In another part of his volume, Lord Charles
Beresford reports a conversation which he had
with the Chinese Governor, and General, Yuan
Shih Kai, whom he describes as " most energetic
and intelligent, and a well-informed and well-
educated man." Lord Charles asked the Gen-
eral if he could make any suggestion that
would be for the benefit of China, and to which
European countries would assent. He says:
" The General answered that no proposal that the
Chinese could make would receive the consent of
the European Powers; that a Chinese would
naturally make a proposition for the mainte-
nance of the empire, while European countries
showed by their actions that they wished to split
up the empire and divide it among themselves."
It is worthy of remark that this conversation took

338 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

place nearly two years before the Boxer move-
ment.

Mr. Archibald R. Colquhoun, a distinguished
British writer upon Asiatic questions, in a work
entitled " Overland to China," thus describes the
diplomatic situation at Peking a few years ago :
" The old-fashioned, chronic questions of transit
and audience gave way to fierce threats and de-
mands for territory and special concessions. The
French and Russian ministers alternated their
daily visits to the Tsung li Yamen, and bullied,
stormed, and threatened, until the Chinese were
completely cowed."

And Mr. Harold E. Gorst, in his volume on
China, furnishes the following interesting state-
ment of facts. It was necessary that the Chinese
Government should secure funds with which to
pay the balance of the Japanese war indemnity.
" The British Government was most anxious to
issue the loan on generous and acceptable terms.
But Russia stepped in directly the negotiations
neared completion, and peremptorily forbade
China to borrow the money. The Chinese Min-
ister in London was instructed to explain (to the
British authorities) that the Chinese Govern-
ment had been warned by Russia that their ac-
ceptance of a loan, guaranteed by Great Britain,
would entail an interruption in the friendly rela-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 339

tions existing between the two empires." This
was Russia's innings. But now John Bull takes
his turn at the bat. Mr. Gorst continues : " In
compliance with instructions from Downing
Street (the British Foreign Office), the unfortu-
nate Chinese were warned that if they resorted to
the expedient of obtaining a loan from European
financiers, the friendly relations between the two
countries would be seriously imperilled, were
British banks excluded from sharing in the trans-
action. The upshot of these threats and counter
threats, by which the unhappy Tsung li Yamen
was placed between cross-fires, was the Anglo-
German loan of £16,000,000."

It ought to be added that China needed this
money to complete the payment of indemnity,
and thus to secure the evacuation of Wei Hai
Wei, which was held as security, and in the pos-
session of Japanese troops. When the money,
borrowed as indicated above, was paid to Japan,
and her troops moved out, Great Britain quietly
moved in and took possession, which she still
holds. It is to be hoped that this exalted type
of statecraft is peculiar and limited to Europe.
There have been exhibitions of it in other Orien-
tal capitals than Peking. A European Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (all
with capital letters) once appeared at the Japanese

340 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Foreign Office, asked to see the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, and informed that official
that he should remain in his presence until a cer-
tain firm, composed of his compatriots, were
granted the contract to supply a new government
building with shovels, tongs, pokers, and fire-
grates.

The truth is — and it ought to be told — that the
European Powers have only themselves to thank,
or blame, for nine-tenths of all the difficulties
which have arisen within the Chinese Empire.
Governmental policies which are utterly without
excuse, and scandalous diplomacy, are at the root
of all the troubles. There is no serious difficulty
in handling the Chinese question, if only it may
be handled decently. Anything which ought,
in the judgment of the great Western Powers, to
be done by the Imperial authorities will be done,
if common cause is made by the former, and
the point firmly and patiently pressed. But
the meekest and most timid animal known to
science will struggle and strike out when it is led
to believe that its life is sought. The policies of
the past in China have brought the four hundred
millions of the race into a desperate, enraged
struggle for national existence. And the present
crisis is the result. The scheme of dismember-
ment is, in no sense, the outgrowth of Chinese

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 341

official incompetence, corruption, or troubles of
any sort between China and the Western world.
But it is the natural sequence, the final and foul
issue, of years of strife and bickering between the
European Powers for political and commercial
supremacy within the empire. There are no ar-
guments to justify it, save such as are available
to the highwayman and pirate.

It is, of course, understood that great political
organizations and governments, as such, are not
charitable or philanthropic in their purposes.
Their legitimate object is to conserve and pro-
mote the interests of the people within their
charge. And it is to be expected that all ques-
tions, whether domestic or international, will be
considered by them from this natural standpoint.
Hence, a certain amount of what may be called
decent selfishness is to be expected in all their
lines of policy and action. But, at the same time,
they are bound to show some regard for the com-
mon rights of humanity, and to respect the just
claims and interests of othen It is good policy
to do so. And the questions of partition, and of
the general attitude of foreign powers toward
China, are not argued or considered here upon
any elevated plane of morals or religion, but upon
the lower general standing ground of common-
sense and sound public policy. Judged and de-

342 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

cided by such rules and measures, the result must
be strong condemnation, both of past European
policies in China and of the proposed dismem-
berment.

If, at the establishment of diplomatic relations
with the empire forty years ago, the great Powers
then interested had agreed in the adoption of the
policy which has, in the main, been consistently
pursued by the United States; if Great Britain
had consented to the suppression of the iniqui-
tous opium traffic; if all Western governments
had given assurance to the Chinese authorities, by
acts as well as words, that no unjust demands or
aggressions would be indulged in; that the in-
tegrity of the nation was not, and would not be,
threatened; but that, on the other hand, all
pledges and promises given by China must be
kept in good faith, and a sound commercial and
friendly intercourse must be permitted and en-
couraged— if such a line of policy had been
adopted and followed out, conjointly and con-
sistently, by all the great Powers, the results
would have been, beyond question, immeasurably
better for the entire world.

None who have studied the Chinese character
and the history of the past forty years can fail
to recognize this. There would have been no
occasion to fear the temper or strength of a re-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 343

organized and developed China. Before she
reached her new strength, she would have real-
ized that she had no wrongs to avenge. Now
she knows that she has, and hence, with some, a
policy of inhumanity and aggression may best be
followed by another of suppression and strangu-
lation. Under such a just and reasonable course
of action, the empire would have taken on a new
and modern dress, would have been developed
and reconstructed as rapidly as would have been
wise or prudent, in view of the naturally conser-
vative tendencies of the people. The anti-foreign
feeling would have died of starvation, having
nothing to feed upon. And commerce, that final
good of modern Western life, would have grown
far beyond its present limits, since it would have
been unvexed and unhampered by restrictions in-
spired by hatred and fear. There would have
been more profit in an honest, peaceable policy.

True, much patience and much pressure would
have been called into exercise at times. But those
are not expensive forces, when compared with
the equipment, transportation, and massing of
armies, the destruction of cities, and the hideous
massacre of men, helpless women, and little chil-
dren. And those forces, combined with firmness
and persistence, would have done the work. No
war would have been necessary. No power other

344 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

or stronger than what may be called persuasive
coercion would have been demanded.

If there are no arguments in favor of the dis-
memberment of China which are sound, there are
many against it which are unanswerable. Some
of them have been brought out in the earlier
pages of this chapter. These may be summa-
rized, and others added, here.

The empire is too compact, too homogeneous
and thoroughly unified for successful dismember-
ment. It is too large, and far too indigestible, to
be swallowed whole. There are fewer natural
lines of division among the Chinese race than are
to be found in the toughest granite rock. A
sufficient amount of force may shatter it into
irregular, nondescript fragments, but it contains
no lines of cleavage, and hence cannot be divided.
China may be broken, it cannot be partitioned.
All the imaginary lines which cupidity, lust for
political domination, or other motive can suggest,
may be stretched through the air and across the
empire, and different names may be given to the
areas marked out by these lines of political cob-
web, with a spider in the centre of each, but the
whole country will continue a practically undi-
vided China. How long these spiders, British,
Russian, German, and French, may be allowed to
gorge and bloat themselves upon Chinese flies

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 345

and mosquitoes; how soon they will fall upon
and devour each other ; or how soon they may be
swept away by some Chinese patriotic broom,
are, of course, questions of a different sort.

For the temporary and nominal partition of
China is one thing, and the real subjugation, ab-
sorption, and assimilation of the various portions,
by the Powers placed in control of them, is an-
other and very serious business. Thus far no
solvent has been found for the Chinaman. And,
unless Christianity will do the work, he must
remain the refractory ore in the mine of hu-
manity. He has an unlimited power of absorp-
tion and improvement, but retains, through all
such processes, his own type and his own individ-
uality. He adopts most Western ways and
ideas with a good degree of readiness, but he
shapes them to himself, rather than being shaped
by them. At once, when accepted and put into
use by him, they, so to speak, take on his color,
and assume almost an Oriental nativity. The
Chinaman is a Chinaman everywhere and under
all conditions. Quiet, good-natured, and docile as
he is, his personality is so intense, and his power
of silent and often undiscovered resistance so
great, that what he chooses to take on becomes a
part of himself, while unwelcome influences per-
manently fail of effect.

346 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

All of which, taken in connection with his
strong pride of race, great love of his home and
country as it is, and contemptuous dislike of those
who would become his rulers, make of him a most
unpromising subject for experiment, with a view
to his subjection to any Western government.
The Chinese mind is not adjusted to any other
form of control than that with which it has been
familiar for many centuries, and of which it is
actively a part. It will not readily become so.
For the parental idea lies at the root of the
system, and the Chinaman is little likely to accept
any red-haired, large-nosed, blue-eyed, grotesque
monstrosity of the human being (as he regards
it) as the parental head of his race, and the Son
of Heaven. This may seem a purely sentimental
idea, but it will be found to be both active and
dangerous.

The successes of Western Powers in governing
Oriental races have not been sufficiently pro-
nounced to justify an attempt upon the most
difficult and refractory of them all. After one
hundred years of undisputed control, Great
Britain still holds India by means of an expen-
sive military cordon. But the people are still
natives in every sense of that word. And while
that empire has been a veritable gold mine for
British merchants; and while an army of a

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 347

quarter of a million of men, aided by a vast array
of civilian officials, have kept the country in sub-
jection, given a fair measure of good govern-
ment, and worked out numerous and valuable
public improvements, it has yet to be demon-
strated that the native Indian takes any active
interest in all these things; that he recognizes
himself as really a part of them ; that he has any
other feeling toward the Empress, who rules him
from London, than bitter, though concealed, hate ;
and that the armed force which holds him could,
after these four centuries, be safely withdrawn,
and he be left to a free enjoyment of those bless-
ings of Western civilization which have been
taught and forced into him for so long a period
of time. It also remains to be demonstrated that
the native Indian would not, in the same cen-
turies, have done more and better for himself if
allowed, under moderate control and guidance,
freedom of action and personal responsibility for
the results. The Japanese have certainly done
enormously better for themselves under such con-
ditions. And why, then, might not the native of
India?

But the Chinaman is a very different man from
the Hindoo. And what has been difficult in India
will be impossible in China. He is the product
of a far higher form of civilization, has a more

348 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

independent, sturdy, democratic spirit, knows
better his own way, and fully means to have it.
That he has, in the past, subjugated every race
about him, excepting the Indian, from which he
was shut off by the Himalayas, and the Japanese
beyond sea, is sufficient proof of his superiority
in the various directions of national strength.
He is not in love with the European, does not rec-
ognize the superiority of the latter in many re-
spects, and there is no reason whatever to expect
that he could be easily brought to call him master.
One thing he might do. He might take some-
what readily to the profession of arms, for he
possesses all the natural qualities of a good sol-
dier. He might submit to all the drill and study
involved in the modern science of war until ex-
pert with the sword, and then, when in his judg-
ment the time had come, thrust it into his in-
structor and oppressor.

The Chinese are abundantly able to govern
themselves and to work out their own future.
Why not allow them to do it? They possess all
of the ability of the Japanese, with more stead-
fastness and conservatism. They adopt new ideas
less readily, perhaps, but, once accepted, those
ideas are more permanently employed and to bet-
ter purpose. They might not shape all things in
conformity with American or European notions

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 349

and manners. But who has decided that the
notions and manners of the latter are, invariably
and unequivocally, the best possible for every
race and every condition ? The entire history of
the Chinese race demonstrates its ability,
strength, and manliness. They will do for them-
selves, slowly perhaps, but surely and efficiently,
whatever needs to be done, under kindly guid-
ance, far better than under what they believe to
be hostile control and dictation.

No possible good or really desirable end can
be gained by the dismemberment of the Chinese
Empire. Upon the contrary, a gross wrong
against humanity would be perpetrated in the act,
and not only China, but the whole civilized world
would suffer in consequence of so foul a deed.
More is at stake than the Celestial and his empire.
The peace of Europe depends upon the integrity
of China, and a new map of the latter will inevita-
bly result in new map of the former. As has
been shown, the question of partition is the result
of the strife and quarrel over commercial and
political supremacy in the East, and is not at all
the outcome of troubles caused by China. The
only role played by her in the tragedy is that of
victim.

If the mere discussion of Chinese affairs pro-
vokes such jealousy and excitement in European

350 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

courts; if Russia cannot occupy a square mile
of land, or make a loan to China, or buy a few
feet of foreshore at Chefoo, without an angry
growl from Great Britain, a threat made and an
equivalent demanded ; if Germany must threaten
France, and France must scowl over robberies
perpetrated by the former upon unfortunate
China, what would be the result, if these four
great Powers came into close contact in remote
Asia, as the result of the dismemberment of the
Chinese Empire? The peace of Europe could not
endure for a week.

This statement cannot seem exaggerated to
any person who is even moderately familiar with
the European, and especially the British, press.
Read any newspaper, magazine, or book which
deals with international questions, and the fact
becomes at once apparent that Russia is the ever-
present and ever-active bugbear to the entire
British nation. Let the soldiers of the Czar take
possession of a village containing only a dozen
mud-walled hovels, in Mongolia or Manchuria,
and a unanimous shriek goes up from the British
press that the Russians are advancing on India.
Let the Czar seek for an ice-free port upon the
Pacific, and he is advancing upon India. India
must be a veritable gold mine indeed to justify
such hysterics from intelligent Englishmen,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 351

whenever Russia makes an unimportant move-
ment, at some point five thousand miles distant
from the nearest point of the Indian frontier.

What would happen if these two great Powers,
mad with mutual jealousy, hatred, and suspicion,
should meet face to face upon a common bound-
ary line in the Yangtze Valley? A bitter war,
which would most likely punish each of them,
and avenge China for wrongs suffered at their
hands. But China herself would be the worst
sufferer. The fairest part of the empire would
be devastated, and millions of her unoffending
people would be forced to suffer the horrors of
war, famine, and pestilence.

CHAPTER XII.

REFORM IN CHINA.

STRICTLY speaking, the subject of this chapter
is one with which foreign governments have
nothing to do. The Chinese political system is
a matter for the consideration and adjustment of
the Chinese people alone. The purity or corrup-
tion of officials, the honest or iniquitous enforce-
ment of law, the wisdom or unwisdom of any
particular system of taxation, and all other ques-
tions which touch the complicated machinery of
political organization and administration, are
purely domestic in their character, and, right-
fully, must be left to the decision of those directly
concerned.

It is natural and easy, but dangerous, for out-
siders to meddle in them. Doubtless, certain of
the great Powers of Europe, from purely interest-
ed motives, would gladly revise, for the United
States, the whole system of import taxation as le-
gally defined and administered here, and would
also correct our faults and vices in a variety of

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 353

other directions, and much to their advantage.
Doubtless, China would undertake to remedy the
discrimination against her people, which is to be
found in our immigrant legislation. And, be-
yond a question, the statesmen of America have
discovered a multitude of wrongs and abuses in
the governmental systems of Europe, which lat-
ter they feel themselves quite competent to re-
cast and reconstruct upon a pure and ideal basis.
But the homely old rule which teaches each man
to mind his own business is nowhere so impor-
tant and imperative as in questions of this sort.
The interests involved are so grave and far-
reaching, and, at the same time, so complicated,
intertangled, and obscure, that strangers may not
safely meddle. They must be studied out,
wrought out, and lived out, by the inhabitants
themselves.

Only when the defects or abuses of any politi-
cal system are of such grave character as to inter-
fere with the rights, privileges, and immunities
of aliens resident within the territory controlled
by it, and to result in constant violations of treaty
engagements — only under such conditions are
foreign governments justified, or wise, in inter-
ference. And there is good ground for the belief
that, even in such cases, the interference may best
be confined to the correction of particular wrongs

354 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

and violations of obligation, leaving the govern-
ment most concerned to correct the system under
which they have been committed. Governments
are but larger bundles of human nature. They
will resist and resent outside pressure or advice,
when, if left quietly to themselves, they will take
the necessary steps to remove causes of complaint.
A manifest determination to exact what is due
will effect more than any quantity of unwelcome
interference.

That wholesale and sweeping reforms are de-
manded in every branch of the Chinese adminis-
tration, if the nation is to continue an indepen-
dent existence, is manifest to every one who has
any acquaintance with the country or its people.
None recognize this fact more fully than the Chi-
nese themselves. Just how far foreigners may
wisely press or offer their advice or assistance, in
bringing these to pass, is quite another question.

The chapter upon " The Chinese Army and
Navy " has given the reader some faint idea of
the hopeless inefficiency and rampant corruption
which exist in that most important branch of the
government service. Only the most superficial
examination of any, or all, of the remaining de-
partments is necessary to show an equal or
greater decay in efficiency and growth in abuse.
Appropriations are not appropriated, but pass

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 355

from the Treasury into the pockets of officials
and their underlings. Orders and instructions
are seldom executed in good faith, and are, not
infrequently, quite ignored. Reports mean little
or nothing in the way of exact information upon
any existing state of facts. They may show
what ought to be, they seldom show what is.

The finances of the empire — and they consti-
tute the most sensitive and reliable barometer of
honesty and good government in any nation —
have long been in a chronic condition of disorder
and scantiness. Yet the tax levy, while moderate
in every direction, is ample, if honestly collected,
honestly paid into the Treasury, and honestly and
intelligently expended, to meet all the needs of
the administration of affairs. The root of the
trouble can be stated in a single sentence. While
far more than the legal amount of tax is collected
from the people, far less than that amount is
paid into the Treasury, and of sums appropriated
from the public funds, which have thus been sub-
jected to one sweating process, only a small pro-
portion reaches any legitimate destination. By
way of example, the land tax is reasonable in rate
and quite within the ability of the people to pay.
Yet, legitimately collected and paid, it would
yield a large and reliable annual revenue. An
average of from three to five times the authorized

356 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

amount is regularly collected, and less than the
proper return is as regularly reported. Any num-
ber of instances might be cited in proof of this
statement. In The Real Chinaman is given an
interesting detail of the methods by which this
extortion is accomplished, and the statement of
a particular case, in which the inhabitants of a
district, not remote from Peking, revolted against
the payment of four and one-half times the legal
rate, and, after varied experiences, effected a com-
promise with the local authorities, agreed to pay
two and one-half times the proper sum annually
for all future time, and erected a granite slab in
the centre of their city, as permanent evidence of
this adjustment of the difficulty.

It is, naturally, impossible to determine wheth-
er this form of official corruption — tampering
with the government funds — is greater in the
capital or the provinces. Some illustrations of
what is done beneath the eye of the Emperor
will show what it is there, and will lead to the
conclusion that, if worse at points more remote
from the centre of authority, little or nothing can
be left for the legitimate expenses of the govern-
ment. The Imperial household, being Manchu,
use milk, which the Chinese never touch, as an
article of food, and a supply is brought each day
to the palace from outside the city. The native

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 357

residents of Peking have a saying, as describing
the universal peculation, that, when the Imperial
milk wagon reaches the outer gate of the city, the
official on duty there takes out a cup of milk and
puts in a cup of water, at each gate and police
station within the city, passed by the wagon, this
process of extraction and substitution is repeated,
with the result that, when the fluid eventually
reaches the Imperial table, no trace of milk, even
in color, can be detected. They are also some-
what fond of saying that the Emperor is the
poorest man in all China.

At one time in its history, Peking possessed an
elaborate and efficient system of sewage, not
connected with residences or public buildings of
any class, but intended solely to carry off the
heavy rainfall. Some years ago, it became neces-
sary to clean out a stretch of sewer, from one of
the legations to the canal, a distance of about
fifteen hundred feet. It was in perfect repair, but
was silted full of earth. The work required was
simple, and comprised digging down some four
feet to the top of the sewer, removing the heavy
granite slabs which capped it, shovelling out the
dry earth from within, and replacing everything
in proper shape. An application to the city au-
thorities to have this work done was met with
the reply that there were no funds available for

358 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

such purpose. The head of the legation most
affected by this lack of proper drainage then
decided to have the sewer cleaned at his own ex-
pense, and made a contract with a Chinese for
the sum of six hundred Mexican dollars. But, at
a later moment, he changed his determination,
and brought influences and pressure to bear upon
the Imperial authorities, until they at length did
their duty. And thus done, this simple piece of
shovelling cost the government somewhat more
than fifty-five thousand Mexican dollars!

At about the same time, an order was made to
open up and put into thorough repair a similar
trunk sewer, running along a business street from
the south to the north wall of the city. A liberal
sum was appropriated for the expense of the
work. The labor was performed in the follow-
ing manner by the military police of Peking.
Selecting a position over the sewer and directly
in front of the largest shop or store upon the
street, they proceeded to make a large excavation,
throwing the dirt and refuse into a huge pile
against the entrance to this establishment, and
completely putting an end to its business. Com-
plaints and remonstrances were in vain. They
were obeying the commands of the Emperor, and
what were mere merchants, that they should ob-
ject or interfere! Eventually, a money payment

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 359

secured their consent to close the opening made,
and to remove to the front of another commer-
cial establishment. Thus, every business man of
any property, along the entire street, was black-
mailed, and the sum thus secured was nearly as
large as the appropriation for the repair of the
sewer. But not a stroke of really serviceable
work was done.

After a suitable length of time had passed, and
the inhabitants, but not the sewer, had been
worked, a report was made to the Throne that the
labor had been performed. An Imperial Com-
mission was thereupon commanded to examine
the sewer upon a specified day, and report. At
the time named, the members of this body went,
in great state and parade, to the upper end of the
sewer, where, and in their presence, a man was
lowered into it, with direction to pass through to
the other end. Certainly, no more perfect test of
thoroughness than this could be devised. The
Commission went to the lower end, where, after a
short delay, the man appeared. And the Em-
peror was informed, in due course, that the work
had been thoroughly done. Such the report, but
the facts were different. The sewer had been
cleaned out for a distance of about twenty feet
at each end. A man had been placed in hiding in
the lower end, before the arrival of the Commis-

360 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

sion. Upon a secret signal, and having previ-
ously rubbed some dirt upon his dress, he ap-
peared— when he was wanted. The man put
into the upper end of the sewer remained there
until the officials and crowd had gone, then
quietly crept out and went home. The sum of
money thus raised, half by theft and half by
blackmail, was divided among several hundred
people, in varying amounts. Probably a major-
ity of the people in the city had more or less in-
formation of the gross fraud thus perpetrated.
It could hardly be otherwise, as it was being car-
ried on in open day for months. Yet nothing
was said. And the only person who remained
in absolute ignorance of the manner in which his
commands were not being obeyed, but were being
used to rob his subjects, was the Emperor.

It is impossible to excuse, or palliate, such
wholesale robbery and fraud. And the question
may well be raised whether, in a nation which
permits and quietly overlooks the constant prac-
tice of similar injustice, there can remain any
root of honesty, or any capacity for reform.
That, first or last, the entire population of the
empire appear to be, not merely complacent on-
lookers, but active participants in the robbery of
the Treasury, only darkens the outlook and, ap-
parently, destroys the prospect of any reform.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 361

Yet, before accepting any such conclusion, it
may be well to recall the laxity of conscience to-
ward the government in other lands much nearer
home, the extent to which Christian ladies and
gentlemen of high character and eminent respect-
ability defraud the revenue by smuggling, and
rob at once the nation and their poorer neighbors,
by denying ownership of property or understat-
ing its value, and all under the sanctity of an
oath.

It may be accepted that, while fraud and cor-
ruption exist everywhere in China, the Peking
cases, cited above, are extreme and do not repre-
sent, what may be termed, the just average of
wrongdoing. If they were fair examples, the
government would long since have gone out of
existence. And there are many features in the
Chinese character and their system of administra-
tion which, while not rendering wrongdoing less
culpable, make reform far less hopeless.

The parental or family idea of government,
which, as has often been said, lies at the root of
their system, induces laxity of thought and action
regarding public property. What belongs to the
family may properly be taken by any member.
Public property belongs to any one who thinks
that he needs it, and may be appropriated to per-
sonal advantage without the commission of a

362 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

heinous offence. Again, officials being chosen
from among the people, and every family in the
empire having, or aiming to have, a relative
among those who collect and disburse public
funds, the whole business of administration, or
maladministration, is in this way reduced to a
sort of family affair. The people pay the money,
and the people handle it. What more need be
said? If a farmer in the province of Chihli suffers
from the extortions of the tax collector, he excuses
it, and comforts himself with the thought that his
son, brother, or cousin, down in Hunan, also be-
longs to the official class and is rilling his purse
down there. In this way, all forms of extortion,
injustice, and official or private wrongdoing are
condoned and made light of, when they would not
be endured for an hour, were it not for this family
idea.

The Chinese have a wonderful, though indefi-
nite, system of balances and adjustments. The
writer once heard two men discussing, by the
roadside, the results of their business for the day.
They had each carried two baskets of cabbages
into Peking, and peddled them through the
streets. One had received five pieces of cash for
each pound of his wares, while the other had re-
ceived but four. But the latter remarked that he
had tucked eight pounds of pebbles into the heads

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 363

of his cabbage, and hence had gained a few more
cash than the first, for his day's work. With no
invariable or generally recognized standards of
weight or measure, with steelyard bars graded to
buy with, upon one side, and to sell by, upon the
other, neither being correct, with no system of
coinage, with a perfectly indefinite unit of money,
with silver bullion as the medium of exchange, of
all grades, qualities, shapes, and sizes, it is simply
astonishing to what extent all things are balanced
up, all differences allowed for and adjusted in the
accounting, and how little actual loss by fraud or
deception occurs. One result of the lack of any
standard in anything is, that every man is a sharp
and close hand at a bargain.

And they equalize and average the more seri-
ous affairs of public service in much the same
way that they employ in the petty details of pri-
vate life. No attempt is made to secure that
exact administration of each item of business
which is looked for and, in a measure, secured in
Western lands. If the general average is satis-
factory, particular cases of misrule or abuse are
not seriously considered. There is a far greater
amount of individuality in the conduct of public
or private affairs in China than is to be found
elsewhere. The official adapts his acts and de-
cisions to the particular person with whom he is

364 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

dealing. This cannot be termed even-handed
justice, but it appears to satisfy the Chinese.

The writer was once placed where, for several
days, he witnessed the proceedings and heard the
conversation between a tax collector and the peo-
ple of a district in which he was performing the
duties of his office. Any proceedings more un-
dignified and irregular could hardly be described.
Threats, cajolery, earnest argument, and banter
were by turns employed, and often upon the same
person. The collector was as far removed from
being an automatic limb of the law, the imper-
sonal representative of an unvarying force and
authority, as can be conceived. Judged by his
remarks and conduct, he was possessed of full and
final discretion to collect anything, or nothing, as
he might see fit. And he manifestly gauged his
conduct in each case by the person with whom he
was dealing. In one instance, he would exact the
last cash of the tax, with allowances for poor sil-
ver, additions for interest, expenses, commis-
sions, and other charges, until the sum total
represented several multiples of the original
amount. In the next instance he would, perhaps,
accept one-half of the tax due, while, in the next,
he was entirely contented to receive nothing at
all. And the victims, or victors, as the case might
be, evidently understood it all, and were quite sat-

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 365

isfied. There were no signs of rack or thumb-
screw in the proceedings of the entire three days.
They formed, rather, a prolonged contest of ar-
gument and powers of persuasion. Yet it must
not be understood that all tax collectors in China
perform their duties in the manner just described.

The system of individual responsibility, if it
exists at all in the Chinese Empire, is not found
in the organization of the central authority. The
constitution of the Board of War, as heretofore
described, is followed in all of the other depart-
ments. In each, the responsibility and authority
are so far divided and subdivided, balanced and
counter-balanced, that no one person is account-
able for any act, and no individual member of the
Board can do anything. Energy and honesty
are wasted. Each official can hide behind every
other, and thus evade question or criticism. Even
the personal accountability of a viceroy is much
less than is supposed. A complicated system of
checks upon his action hinder his efforts in any
direction, good or bad, and provide him, too,
with abundant refuge under any storm of im-
perial or popular censure.

In the Chinese official system there is no such
clean-cut partition of duties into different classes,
and distribution of them among different men, as
is found in Western nations. A civil officer has

366 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

various military functions to perform. The
mayor of a city is liable, any day, to be ordered to
assume command of an army corps or a battle-
ship. And in the performance of his civil obli-
gations, he is, by turns, a legislator, a judge, and
an executive officer. There is this commingling
and confusion of all the various lines of official
work, to be found everywhere throughout China.
The same authority makes the law, puts it into
operation, and passes judgment upon those who
fail to obey it.

The result is a peculiarly tangled system, which
affords unlimited opportunities for corruption
and arbitrary exactions of every sort. In Pe-
king, where the same or a greater confusion of
duties exists, it is by no means unusual to see one
official holding a dozen different positions in all
the various departments of public service. One
result of which is, that a popular and efficient
servant of the Throne is literally worked to death,
while others, more inclined to indolence, do noth-
ing. They pass their lives in a feeble effort to
determine which, in the medley of duties assigned
them, had best be attacked first. That public in-
terests suffer, under such a system of confusion,
goes without saying.

China is largely over-officered. In the govern-
ment service, as everywhere else, there are more

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 367

hands than work. And this evil is continually
increasing. The result is seen in a host of under-
paid, and hence half-starved, petty public ser-
vants, whose only practical duty consists in in-
venting some occasion for exactions from the
people. Crowds of them are to be found about
every important public office, such as that of a
viceroy or governor. And special commissions
and unnecessary labors are invented and devised
in order to furnish them with an excuse for con-
tinuing to live. The people are philosophic under
such unreasonable burdens, largely for the reason
already given, that these officers come from their
own number, and having attained to such dignity,
must be respected, honored, and — fed.

Most exaggerated notions are current in Amer-
ica and Europe regarding the wealth of Chinese
officials. A few years ago a citizen of the United
States, who had resided for years at Hong Kong,
was appealed to by a newspaper reporter in New
York for some information as to the wealth of a
certain high Chinese official. In utter ignorance
upon the point, he drew freely upon his imagina-
tion, and the result was somewhat startling. The
viceroy referred to would doubtless consider him-
self rich beyond his wildest dreams if he possessed
one-hundredth part of the fortune attributed to
him. For many years the reputed wealthiest

368 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

person in Peking was an officer whose name has
already appeared in these pages. And the high-
est estimate placed upon his possessions was con-
siderably below one million dollars.

China is not the land of the enormously rich.
However startling might be the sum total of the
peculations from the public purse and the extor-
tions from the people, throughout the empire, the
great bulk of it all is divided in small sums among
petty officials, underlings, and unofficial subordi-
nates, on the spot, and at the time of collection,
and, through them, flows back directly into the
pockets of the people. Great wealth in China, as
elsewhere, is found, not in the hands of officials,
but of merchants and business men. Each officer
of any grade in the service is obliged to maintain,
at his own cost, a large staff of aides, secretaries,
clerks, petty officers, messengers, and underlings
of every kind. No government allowances of any
sort are made for these adjuncts to his dignity
and necessary assistants in the performance of his
duty. Yet he is expected to retain a larger num-
ber of them than would be seen in a correspond-
ing office in any other country. If they are de-
ficient in number or in any of the thousand
and one requirements which etiquette prescribes
as necessary to such official attendants, he will
surely suffer in dignity and respect paid him, and,

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 369

possibly, in more serious ways. If they rob the
people, they rob their master no less. They are
the active agents in all forms of official pecula-
tions, and much of the results of such theft and
extortion never leave their hands. And, as has
already been said, the large proportion of that
which has been reported to their master is, at
once, distributed among them. The post of gate-
keeper, or porter, in a Chinese viceroy's palace
is often, if not invariably, more profitable than
the post of viceroy.

The salaries allowed to Chinese officials are
merely nominal, seldom, if ever, sufficient to pro-
vide and maintain the staff above described. The
annual legal salary of a viceroy is about $500.
A cabinet officer in Peking receives from $1000
to $1250 a year, upon which he is expected to
maintain his family, his rank and dignity, and
support his secretaries and a suitable staff, besides
extending hospitality to guests. Of this sum, his
salary, properly speaking, is $250 — the remainder
is made up of special allowances. So a viceroy
is granted additional sums which increase his
total authorized income to about $6000. But his
inevitable expenses are far in excess of those of a
cabinet minister, and cannot aggregate less than
$50,000 a year. As these are the highest officers
in the empire, their pay is proportionately

370 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

greater. The salaries and allowances of lesser
official grades decrease in ratio with the rank,
until the district magistrate or mayor of a city
and district having a population of half a million
souls receives an annual sum, including salary
and all allowances, considerably less than the
earnings of a common laborer in the United
States.

Among these allowances is one entitled the
" anti-extortion fund." And the appropriation
made from it, in some instances, has amounted to
twenty, and even twenty-five, times the salary of
the official recipient. Yet the total amounts re-
ceived from all legitimate sources are insufficient
for the requirements of any government position.
The so-called extortions and peculations are the
inevitable sequence to inadequate salaries. From
this situation has come an understanding, every-
where recognized by the government, officials,
and people of all classes, that those in office have
a claim for compensation upon those whom they
control and serve. The nominal salary and al-
lowances represent only the Imperial portion of
the amount due. The people of any district
must, in turn, pay their share. So long as ex-
actions made under this pretext are moderate,
and the official duties are fairly rendered, no com-
plaint is made.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 371

The unwisdom of any such system is too plain
to require comment. It opens a wide path to
arbitrary and irresponsible administration, and
to a general laxity in the construction of recipro-
cal duties and obligations, which can only end in
the complete demoralization of the public service.
If any officer is free to make a small demand, not
recognized by law, upon a subject, to suit his re-
quirements or desires, he will soon feel at liberty
to make a larger one. If he is at liberty to re-
serve a small commission upon the taxes collected
to pay him for his trouble, the amount being fixed
by himself, he will speedily increase his share.
Upon the other hand, if the people consent to pay
more than legal taxes and imposts, at the demand
of the official, they will soon discover their right
to pay less, if it suits their necessities or con-
venience to do so. The inevitable result is what
is seen to-day in China — hopeless confusion in
the finances of the empire; an utter lack of any
relationship between what the people actually pay
in taxes and the sum which the government re-
ceives; more money raised and less available
than is necessary. And, perhaps, the worst ef-
fect of the system is found in a public sentiment
apparently so debauched, that no approach to dis-
honesty or corruption is seen in it, but it is stoutly
defended as reasonable and business-like.

372 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

This liberty or license to tamper with private
property upon the one hand, and the moneys of
the empire upon the other, is the root of all the
various forms of maladministration which have
cursed China for many years. And the question
at once arises whether a nation thus demoralized
by ideas and practices, which have been working
mischief for centuries, is capable of reform. Can
there be any solid foundation left upon which to
build? Is there enough of honesty and force of
character left in the Chinese to enable them to
correct these abuses, to establish and maintain a
sound governmental system? Is there enough
of cohesive power, enough of public and patriotic
spirit, to be found in the race and nation to endure
the inevitable strain of such sweeping changes as
would be necessary?

There is no doubt in the minds of those who
know China and the Chinese, that all such ques-
tions may safely be answered in the affirmative.
Reference was made, in an earlier paragraph, to
the extraordinary methods of balance and adjust-
ment everywhere prevalent among the people.
The improper and corruptive methods of supple-
menting official salaries, and of dealing, in gen-
eral, with public funds, have been regarded by
the great mass of the nation as processes of this
sort, undesirable but necessary. And hence the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 373

pernicious results have been much less than is
generally believed. A great capacity of endur-
ance and a philosophic turn of mind enable the
average Chinaman to submit, with complacency,
to conditions which he would gladly see modified,
and even to excuse and defend wrong ways and
methods, in the correction of which he would
heartily assist. When the time comes, and re-
formative measures are put into operation in the
empire, the facility and readiness with which they
are adopted, and the appreciative support which
they receive from the people, will surprise the
world.

And yet it will not be strange to those who
know them. The great majority of the Chinese
are honest, acute men of business. They realize
that their traditional systems of finance are ex-
travagant, expensive, and corrupt. These have
been endured, but not enjoyed. As merchants
there are none better in the world than the Chi-
nese, their word is as good as their bond, and
their reliability and integrity are known and rec-
ognized by all who have had dealings with them.
Honest and faithful in their dealings with each
other, why should not such men welcome an hon-
est governmental system, and aid in the establish-
ment of it? What good reason is there for the
assumption that they will not ?

374 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

Industry, economy, patience, persistency of
purpose, democracy of spirit, and stability — all
of these most excellent traits of character are
notably developed in the Chinese. Each one of
them constitutes an argument in favor of their
capacity for reform, and their ability to accom-
plish the much-needed task themselves. And
their very conservatism, while leading them to
caution in making changes, will ensure perma-
nence to a new and better state of affairs.

It is impossible to believe that any race so
multitudinous in number, possessed of a history
continuous and consistent, which extends back to
the very beginnings of recorded time, leaders for
centuries in the civilization of the world, exhib-
iting at the present great intellectuality and an
abundance of shrewd good sense, having such
admirable and sturdy traits of character, such
virility and force — it is impossible to believe that
such a race is incompetent to manage its own
affairs, and to plan and perfect any such reforms
and readjustments of its domestic affairs and
foreign relations as may be desirable or neces-
sary.

The Chinese can and will accomplish this work.
There is a large and growing body of able and
intelligent men in the empire, some of whom have
studied the more modern and better systems of

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 375

administration in Western lands, and all of whom
see clearly the defects of the present government,
and are determined upon their correction. The
Chinese Educational Mission, already referred to,
while not successful in the more immediate pur-
pose of its creation, proved to be a training-school
for much new thought upon Chinese affairs, and
some of the boys who went abroad in 1872-75
will be among the leaders in the grave task of re-
forming and reconstructing a great nation.
There is no lack of material, nor of intelligent,
patriotic determination. Forces have been at
work for many years which, even yet, have not
shown themselves upon the surface. Men,
springing from the ranks of the people, as all
great leaders have come in the United States, will
appear when needed, though their existence is
still unknown. The power of public opinion,
greater in China than elsewhere in the world,
once aroused, will prove irresistible in favor of
better things.

It is a matter of comparative indifference
whether the necessary reforms are wrought out
under the present Manchu dynasty or under
some different regime. That question the na-
tion should be allowed to determine for itself.
The Manchus have become essentially Chinese,
the work will be done by Chinese, who vastly out-

376 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

number the others, and have, for many years,
been in practical control of the affairs of the em-
pire. It would be exceedingly unwise, and possi-
bly disastrous, for any foreign Power to interfere
or offer advice in that question.

Unless prevented by force or disheartened by
threats and an over-pressure of rival and con-
flicting interests, from without the empire, the
leaders of Chinese thought will execute all needed
reforms themselves, and with a single view to the
advantage of the Chinese nation. And just here
is danger of serious trouble. There are any num-
ber of elaborate schemes and plans for the reor-
ganization of China in existence. The major
part of them are of foreign origin. Chambers of
Commerce, Boards of Trade, philanthropic indi-
viduals, a few missionaries, and persons of varied
description — as well as some who are nondescript
— have all taken a hand in the enterprise.
Oceans of advice, much of it good and much more
impracticable, at least for the present, have been
poured upon the heads of the rulers and people
of the empire. All of this had a foreign or
Western flavor, and hence, for reasons which this
volume must have made quite evident, is discred-
ited and distrusted by the Chinese. And much
of it was, and is, liable to another and more seri-
ous objection — it rearranges and readjusts the

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 377

Imperial system and the laws for the benefit of
the foreigner and foreign commerce. It pro-
poses, in fact, the management of China for the
advantage of Europe.

It is idle to expect that those who. have intelli-
gently at heart the good of their country, and a
wise regard for its future, will consent to any.
such schemes and devices. Nothing short of
force can accomplish them. In the future, China
will either rule herself, and control her own af-
fairs for her own good, as do other self-respecting
nations, or she will cease to exist. Thanks to the
recent uprising, the parting of the ways has come
to this great empire. Henceforward, taking
counsel from her near neighbor, China will
gather herself together, call into exercise her
enormous latent power, readjust herself to her
own advantage, and take her place among the
great nations of the world, not all at once, but
gradually, or she will be dismembered, destroyed,
and distributed about, piecemeal, among the
Powers of Europe, to the shame of humanity and
the destruction of the peace of the world.
Whichever may happen, the Chinese are little
likely to accept, unless under stress of arms, the
schemes and devices of those who have de-
bauched, humiliated, insulted, and robbed the
empire in the past.

378 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

It is manifestly the part of wisdom to allow the
Chinese to do their own work in their own way,
at least until a disposition is shown to interfere
with the manifest rights and privileges of for-
eigners. When advice is needed, they will hardly
fail to seek it. A certain amount of pressure
and semi-control will undoubtedly be called for,
for a time at least. But it can best be exercised
only with great tact, quietness, and discretion.
They have a great store of suspicion, bitterness,
and active hatred of all foreigners to eliminate
from their thoughts and feelings. They attrib-
ute, and justly, many of their most serious ills
to foreigners. And if they are to be given an
opportunity to come into line with the rest of the
world, and if the establishment of permanent re-
lations with them upon a new and better basis is
desirable, surely everything which may tend to
perpetuate or renew former ill-will ought to be
carefully avoided for the benefit of all.

It is not to be expected that the necessary reor-
ganization of China can be effected without much
delay, excitement, and irritation, and, possibly,
bloodshed. If it could be done at once and with-
out difficulty of any sort, then the inhabitants of
the empire would prove themselves, in a new
direction, to be the most remarkable race which
has existed upon the earth in all time. For no

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 379

such stupendous work has ever yet been easily
done, or done at all, without force and bloodshed.

The Chinese will prove no exception to the in-
variable experience of the past. And great pa-
tience, moderation, and a consistent slowness will
be necessary in putting each particular reform
into operation among the masses. The power of
precedent, the natural inertia of the race, and a
host of prejudices must be overcome or displaced.
It is not easy for an old race to adapt itself to new
conditions. And here is found an added argu-
ment against foreign interference. No matter
how friendly, sympathetic, and experienced with
the Chinese any Western man or government
may be, none know well how to handle and con-
trol the Chinese but the Chinese themselves.

Even among reformers of their own national-
ity, so far as experience and observation may
serve as a guide to judgment, there is great dan-
ger of too much speed and impatience. They
wish to sweep away too many abuses and evils,
and to initiate too many sweeping reforms, all in
a day. Nothing but disaster can result from
such indiscretion. A notable example of this is
to be found in the action and experiences of the
Emperor, Kuang Hsu, only two years ago.
With the radical and ill-advised ideas of a child,
he proposed to overturn and reconstruct the en-

380 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

tire fabric of Imperial administration within a
few days, and by the easy process of issue of a
sufficient number of paper edicts. He ordered
everything that could be ordered, and all at once.
He denounced and recast the entire system of
literary examinations as a basis for the govern-
ment service. This put the entire mass of literati
throughout China in a fever of excitement and
bitter hostility. By a single sweep of the " ver-
milion pencil," he threw out of existence six of
the government departments, thus depriving
more than six thousand officials of office and the
means of support. Everything that China may
acquire in a half century she was to have in a
day. And the climax came with a report that
a decree was about to be issued, requiring all the
subjects of the Throne to cut off their queues and
to adopt foreign modes of dress ! The sequel to
this insanity of reform is known to all the world.
And the unfortunate young Emperor has not yet
recovered his breath or his functions of state,
lost through such extravagant exercise of Im-
perial energy. The old and wise saying : " It is
better to be slow than sorry," is eminently appro-
priate to the inauguration of schemes, however
wise, for the betterment of the Chinese adminis-
tration.

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 381

It is not within the purpose of this volume to
detail any plan of reorganization or reform.
There are, however, certain preliminary steps
which must be taken before the development of
any system can be worked out, and those will be
mentioned.

The first of these is the establishment of uni-
form and invariable systems of weights, meas-
ures, and coinage. The lack of these makes ex-
tortion and injustice easy. Variable ounce
weights and variable standards of the purity of
silver bullion, added to a varying value of silver
in cash, which is the customary coin of payment,
render it impossible that the taxpayer should ever
know what is the exact legal amount of his in-
debtedness. But the urgent demand for such a
preliminary measure of reform is too evident to
require explanation. It matters little what meas-
ures, weights, and coinage are adopted, so long as
any is ordered and rigidly enforced. Whatever
would come most naturally to the people, and
hence be most readily understood and accepted,
would be the best. An Imperial Decree ordering
the adoption of the system, and naming a date
for its becoming of force sufficiently far in the
future to enable all existing contracts affected by
it to receive the necessary modification, would be

382 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

all the action required. And, under such a
method, no hardship would fall upon a single in-
habitant of the empire.

It hardly need be said that the second prelimi-
nary measure of reform must be the readjustment
of the salaries and pay of all officials and public
servants, of every grade and condition, upon a
reasonable living basis, coupled with the prohibi-
tion, under the most severe penalties, of the re-
ceipt of any sums of money from the people.
Honest service is impossible under any govern-
ment which forces its servants to a choice between
theft and starvation. And this is a fact which
may well receive consideration from other
Powers than the Chinese. This reform will be
more difficult of accomplishment than the first,
and will call for the exercise of extreme vigilance
and stern determination. Yet it can be brought
about. And when the masses of the people have
come to a complete understanding of the new ar-
rangement, and have learned by experience that
they stand in no danger of trouble or injury when
they resist illegal exactions or neglect to offer
bribes, they will co-operate most heartily with the
authorities. Yet it will require years of time to
completely extinguish the old and vicious prac-
tices in this direction.

The last and yet most important, as well as

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 383

difficult, of these preliminary measures of reform
has yet to be named. It consists in weeding out
and removing from the official service of China
every person who is a victim of the opium habit.
This measure is as imperative as difficult. Dif-
ficult, because government offices throughout
China reek with the fumes of the drug. Princes,
viceroys, governors, judges, lesser civil officials
of every rank, military and naval officers, all
suffer under this vicious habit. It means the
retirement to private life of a startling percentage
of the entire official staff of the empire.

It is imperative, because honesty and efficiency
of service and opium smoking are incompatible
and contradictory terms. The two simply can-
not exist in the same person. It is unsafe to
rely upon the honesty of any man, or the purity
of any woman, who is a victim to the opium habit.
The early effects of the drug are the destruction
of the moral sense and the power of accurate dis-
crimination between right and wrong. These
facts are well known, they are the same with
every race. They are recognized and acted upon
in private business. No man of affairs, in China
or elsewhere, trusts an employe who is an opium
smoker, and never employs such a person if any
other is obtainable. Why should these facts be
less true or less important in government posi-

384 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

tions, where the interests at stake are so much
greater and the opportunities for close and fre-
quent supervision so much less? An opium-
smoking Buddhist priest has been known to steal
the very gods from the altar, and pawn or sell
them, for a supply of the drug. Will official vic-
tims of the same habit hesitate at crimes less
serious than sacrilege?

It will be idle and useless for the Chinese au-
thorities to attempt reform along any other lines,
or the rectification of even the least abuse, so long
as nothing is done to cleanse the public offices of
opium fumes. The orders of governors, vice-
roys, of the Emperor himself, simply will not be
obeyed. And when the government sets about
thorough reorganization in good earnest, the first
measure, and one vital to all which may follow,
must be that indicated above. And it must be
drastic and complete. Not merely responsible
heads of departments, boards, and offices must
be removed, but the lowest and most menial sub-
ordinates. It will not be safe to leave an opium-
smoking door-tender or floor-sweeper in any
public office.

It is manifest that the enforcement of any such
measure of reform can only be begun after much
thought and the elaboration of a wisely devised
plan of operations. Cruel injustice and suffering

REAL CHINESE QUESTION 385

would inevitably result from any immediate and
sweeping action in this direction. An official
warning, extending over some two or three years,
to the effect that persons still using the drug after
the expiration of the limit of probation named,
would be excluded from the public service, would
probably be necessary. And years more would
be required to completely eradicate the vice from
all departments and offices of the administration.
Probably enough has been said of the part
played by the self-styled " leading Christian
Power of the world," in forcing this horrible
curse upon the Chinese nation, for the sake of the
enormous revenue derived from the traffic. It is
humiliating to any one who has English blood in
his veins to recall the facts, and to discover that
the British Government is loudest and most im-
perative in the demand for reforms, while that
government is, in the main, alone responsible for
fastening a vice upon China which renders any
reform difficult to the verge of impossibility.

The real Chinese question is the question of
the continued existence of the Chinese nation.
While, in one phase, it is a question between mod-
ern progress and antique conservatism, between
B.C. 500 and A.D. 1900, so many complications

386 REAL CHINESE QUESTION

and issues, exterior to the nation, are involved,
so many other interests are at stake, that, in mak-
ing a choice, if any opportunity for choice is per-
mitted, China decides between life and death.

Left largely to herself, encouraged where en-
couragement is necessary, warned and guided at
times in any kindly and friendly way, and helped
to help herself, there can be no doubt as to the
result. In the interests of a common humanity,
and in wise regard for the lower, but seemingly
more important concerns of trade and commerce,
it is much to be hoped that such a line of
policy may be adopted toward the Chinese Em-
pire in the future.

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